From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 1 18:01:28 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id SAA12432; Fri, 1 Jul 1994 18:01:28 GMT
Received: from campino.informatik.rwth-aachen.de by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id LAA12426; Fri, 1 Jul 1994 11:01:18 -0700
Received: from tabaqui (tabaqui.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE) by campino.informatik.rwth-aachen.de
(4.1/campino-5) id AA29539; Fri, 1 Jul 94 19:39:23 +0200
Received: by tabaqui (4.1/POOL.3)
id AA14779; Fri, 1 Jul 94 19:37:06 +0200
Message-Id: <9407011737.AA14779@tabaqui>
From: berg@pool.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE (Stephen R. van den Berg)
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 1994 19:37:04 +0200
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: SmartList (& procmail) v3.03 have been released
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
The mailinglist management package that used to be distributed together
with procmail has now been split off in a separate package which has been
called "SmartList".
There have been numerous enhancements since v2.90 (which must have been
roughly the version which was compared to the Majordomo and Listprocessor
packages about a year ago).
The packages can be picked up at (if the German Telecom permits, that is,
because they are currently messing up the internet routing here every
other day):
ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de
/pub/packages/procmail/procmail.tar.gz
/pub/packages/procmail/SmartList.tar.gz
Or, you can obtain them via the (SmartList :-) mail archive server by
sending a mail to procmail-request@informatik.rwth-aachen.de with the
following (MIME format):
Subject: archive get procmail*tar.gz SmartList*tar.gz
or (uuencoded, non-MIME):
Subject: archive get procmail*uue.* SmartList*uue.*
---------
Summary of what SmartList provides:
+ The overseeable management of an arbitrary number of mailinglists
+ Convenient and simple creation of new mailinglists
+ Convenient and simple removal of existing mailinglists
+ Fully automated subscription/unsubscription/help-request processing
(no operator intervention needed)
+ Enough intelligence to overcome the ignorance of some subscribers
(will direct subscribe and unsubscribe requests away from the
regular list and automatically onto the -request address)
+ No hardwired format for (un)subscribe requests (i.e. new subscribers
need not be educated, unsubscribing users do not need to remember
any particular syntax)
+ *Intelligent* autoremoval of addresses from the list that cause
too many bounces
+ Submissions can be limited to people on the accept list (which could
be the current list of subscribers)
+ The fully automated subscription mechanism allows for a reject list
of unwanted subscribers and a general address screening mechanism
which allows you to control exactly who is allowed to subscribe
+ Optional implicit subscription upon first submission to the list
+ MIME-compliant auto-digest-generation (configurable per list)
+ Joint management of several mailinglists possible
+ Customisation per mailinglist or mailinglist group possible (simply
remove or create the desired hardlinks)
+ A listmaintainer can be assigned per list; miscellaneous requests
that couldn't be handled by the list automatically are then
forwarded to his mail address (instead of being accumulated in
a file)
+ Allows for remote maintenance of any mailinglist by a
listmaintainer
+ Integrated archiving service
+ Integrated diagnostic aid to give hints to the maintainer about
possible problems
+ Moderated mailinglists with an arbitrary number of moderators
+ Automatically eliminates duplicate submissions
+ You can set up a mailinglist to function as a standalone mail
archive server
+ Extended MIME support (autorecognition of well known file formats)
+ The archive server can send arbitrarily long (even binary) files
in MIME-multipart mails
--
Sincerely, berg@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de
Stephen R. van den Berg (AKA BuGless).
In this signature, the concluding three words `were left out'.
From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 5 15:25:53 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id VAA20696; Tue, 5 Jul 1994 21:56:23 GMT
Received: from mycroft.GreatCircle.COM by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id OAA20689; Tue, 5 Jul 1994 14:56:18 -0700
Message-Id: <199407052156.OAA20689@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>
To: list-managers
Subject: New list manager for List-Managers
Date: Tue, 05 Jul 1994 14:56:16 -0700
From: Brent Chapman
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Michael C. Berch is taking over as manager of
List-Managers. Michael has been a frequent contributor to List-Managers,
and currently manages the Simpsons and Sinead O'Connor mailing lists.
I'm completely overworked these days, and unable to give the list the
attention it deserves. The list will remain here at GreatCircle.COM,
and all administrative procedures and so forth will remain unchanged;
it will simply be Michael dealing with bounces and so forth rather than
me.
All correspondence regarding the list should continue to be sent to
Majordomo@GreatCircle.COM (for all routine requests) or
List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM (for stuff that absolutely
requires a human).
I'm sure you'll join me in wishing Michael the best of luck.
-Brent
--
Brent Chapman | Great Circle Associates | Call or email for info about
Brent@GreatCircle.COM | 1057 West Dana Street | upcoming Internet Security
+1 415 962 0841 | Mountain View, CA 94041 | Firewalls Tutorial dates
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 00:53:11 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id CAA06389; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 02:01:54 GMT
Received: from hustle.rahul.net by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id TAA06383; Wed, 6 Jul 1994 19:01:47 -0700
Received: from bolero.rahul.net by hustle.rahul.net with SMTP id AA24320
(5.67a8/IDA-1.5 for ); Wed, 6 Jul 1994 19:04:45 -0700
Received: by bolero.rahul.net id AA23750
(5.67a8/IDA-1.5 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM); Wed, 6 Jul 1994 19:04:44 -0700
Message-Id: <199407070204.AA23750@bolero.rahul.net>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: How to handle threats from disgruntled members
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 94 19:04:44 -0700
From: Michelle Dick
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
I run a high-volume list with 1700+ and about 50K a day in volume. I
use the standard list-request@site address for administrative
requests.
Because of the volume, the fact that I don't always read all the
traffic on the list, and because I don't wish to condone improper use
of the posting address, I do not process requests sent to the posting
address. All new members are sent explicit instructions when they
join the list.
I recently received the following threat (posted to the list) from a
member of my list (who has never sent a remove request to the request
address):
>Date: Wed, 6 Jul 1994 17:47:56 -0700
>Message-Id: <199407070047.RAA06372@pacific.pacific.net>
>X-Sender: dejong@pacific.pacific.net
>To: fatfree@hustle.rahul.net
>From: dejong@pacific.pacific.net (Philip DeJong)
>Subject: REMOVE
>
>I am losing my sense of humor with his nightmare of a group. I pulled
> 108 messages out of my mailbox from the weekend. I have requested
> remove now for the last 2 weeks. If I am not off this group by yesterday
> I am seriously considering the following alternatives.
> 1. Repost the three most disgusting stories I can find from
>alt.sex.etc. 2. Repost the largest binary picture file I can find of a
>suitable fat person.
> 3. Change my email adress and sue.
>
> I understand from a previous posting that these removes are done by hand.
> I have been patient, but this group has turned by mail box into a dump.
> PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
>
>Phil DeJong
>dejong@pacific.net
I did break my long-standing policy and remove this person's address.
But what do you do when you receive threats like this?
--
Michelle Dick artemis@rahul.net East Palo Alto, CA
Owner, FATFREE Vegetarian Mailing List
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 01:18:16 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id CAA06410; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 02:10:52 GMT
Received: from SLUAVA.SLU.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id HAA29864; Wed, 6 Jul 1994 07:57:08 -0700
Received: from SLUVCA.SLU.EDU by SLUVCA.SLU.EDU (PMDF V4.2-13 #5070) id
<01HEDREY3BQI8WXNGZ@SLUVCA.SLU.EDU>; Wed, 6 Jul 1994 10:01:40 CST
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 1994 10:01:39 -0600 (CST)
From: Jim Milles
Subject: Discussion Lists: Mail Server Commands
To: LIST-MANAGERS@GREATCIRCLE.COM
Message-id: <01HEDREY3LDO8WXNGZ@SLUVCA.SLU.EDU>
Organization: SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY St. Louis, MO
X-Envelope-to: LIST-MANAGERS@GREATCIRCLE.COM
X-VMS-To: LIST-MANAGERS@GREATCIRCLE.COM
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Feel free to reproduce or distribute as you wish. I appreciate any
comments or suggestions.
Jim Milles (listowner, NETTRAIN@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu)
Head of Computer Services
Saint Louis University Law Library
millesjg@sluvca.slu.edu
-----------------------
DISCUSSION LISTS: MAIL SERVER COMMANDS
Version 1.11
July 4, 1994
James Milles
Saint Louis University Law Library
millesjg@sluvca.slu.edu
1. E-mail discussion lists constitute one of the most popular
methods of group communication on the Internet. Discussion lists
support group communication by providing, at minimum, two basic
functions: (1) the ability to distribute a message to a group of
people by sending it to a single, central address, and (2) the
ability to quietly join and leave the list at any time.
1.1. In order to provide these separate functions, an
e-mail discussion list typically has two addresses
associated with it: (1) a "listname address," the address to
which you send any messages that you intend to be read by
the list subscribers; and (2) an "administrative address,"
the address to which you send any commands or requests that
affect your subscription to the list. It's easy to remember
this distinction by thinking of your local newspaper: the
first address is somewhat analogous to sending a "letter to
the editor," while the second is like sending a letter to
the newspaper's subscription office.
1.2. With most discussion lists, the "administrative
address" is a computer program that allows the subscriber to
subscribe and unsubscribe automatically, without external
intervention. There are at least five popular mail server
programs used to manage Internet discussion lists: REVISED
LISTSERV (also called BITNET LISTSERV), Unix ListProcessor
(or Listproc), Mailbase, Mailserv, and Majordomo. The
commands for subscribing and unsubscribing under most of
these programs are the same; however, other useful commands
differ greatly from one program to another, and some
programs support features that others do not.
1.3. This document does not describe all the features
supported by any of these programs, only those most commonly
used. For more information on any of these programs, send a
message containing only the word "help" to the appropriate
mail server. Additional programs and commands will be added
in future revisions of this document.
1.4. The latest version of this document is available by
e-mail and by anonymous ftp:
E-mail: Send a message containing only the line
GET MAILSER CMD NETTRAIN F=MAIL
to LISTSERV@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu.
FTP: Anonymous ftp to ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu
cd /nettrain
get mailser.cmd
-- or --
anonymous ftp to sluaxa.slu.edu
cd /pub/millesjg
get mailser.cmd
2. When you subscribe to a list, you will typically receive a
"welcome" message, describing the purpose of the list and telling
you how to unsubscribe. Save this message! It tells you which
program the discussion list is run under, and how to get further
help.
2.1. Mail servers can be confusing. Many people use the
term "listserv" generically, to refer to any list mail
server program. To make things worse, the Unix
ListProcessor (listproc) program was originally called
"listserv," just like REVISED LISTSERV. Many listproc hosts
are still configured with the name "listserv," and will
accept commands addressed to "listserv@[host]" as well as to
the correct name, "listproc@[host]."
2.2. Usually--but not always--you can find out which
program a discussion list is run under by examining the
message headers. For instance, listproc lists should
include a line saying "Unix ListProcessor." However, the
best practice is to save any "welcome" message you receive
when you subscribe, and to note at that time which set of
commands is applicable.
3. Remember to send all commands to the "administrative
address"--[mailserver]@[host]--not to the "listname address".
[Mailserver] is the program that maintains the list (either
listproc, LISTSERV, mailbase, mailserv, or majordomo); [host] is
the address of the host computer (for example, ucdavis.edu or
cleo.murdoch.edu.au).
3.1. Be sure to leave the Subject: line blank, and to
delete any signature file if your mailer allows you to do
so.
3.2. Always include the name of the list in the message to
[mailserver]@[host]. Most mailserver sites maintain many
different discussion lists, and it is essential that you
tell the mail server which list you are talking about.
3.3. For instance, to join the discussion list
law-lib@ucdavis.edu, send an e-mail message containing only
the command
SUBSCRIBE LAW-LIB John Doe
to listproc@ucdavis.edu.
The other examples used below are:
INT-LAW@UMINN1.BITNET (REVISED LISTSERV),
law-europe@mailbase.ac.uk (Mailbase),
envirolaw@oregon.uoregon.edu (Mailserv),and
elaw-j@cleo.murdoch.edu.au (Majordomo).
----------------------------------------------------------------
Join a list:
Listproc: SUBSCRIBE [listname] Firstname Lastname
(e.g., SUBSCRIBE LAW-LIB John Doe)
LISTSERV: SUBSCRIBE [listname] Firstname Lastname
(e.g., SUBSCRIBE INT-LAW John Doe)
Mailbase: JOIN [listname] Firstname Lastname
(e.g., JOIN LAW-EUROPE John Doe)
Mailserv: SUBSCRIBE [listname] Firstname Lastname
(e.g., SUBSCRIBE ENVIROLAW John Doe)
Majordomo: SUBSCRIBE [listname]
(e.g., SUBSCRIBE ELAW-J)
Leave a list:
Listproc: UNSUBSCRIBE [listname]
LISTSERV: UNSUBSCRIBE [listname]
Mailbase: LEAVE [listname]
Mailserv: UNSUBSCRIBE [listname]
Majordomo: UNSUBSCRIBE [listname]
Receive the list in digest format (multiple messages compiled
into a single mailing, usually daily or weekly):
Listproc: SET [listname] MAIL DIGEST
LISTSERV: SET [listname] DIGEST
Mailbase: Not supported.
Mailserv: Not supported.
Majordomo: SUBSCRIBE [listname]-DIGEST
(in the same message, unsubscribe from the
undigested version:)
UNSUBSCRIBE [listname]
Cancel digest format; receive the list as separate mailings:
Listproc: SET [listname] MAIL ACK
LISTSERV: SET [listname] MAIL
Mailbase: Not supported.
Mailserv: Not supported.
Majordomo: UNSUBSCRIBE [listname]-DIGEST
(in the same message, subscribe to the
undigested version:)
SUBSCRIBE [listname]
Suspend mail temporarily (without unsubscribing):
Listproc: SET [listname] MAIL POSTPONE
LISTSERV: SET [listname] NOMAIL
Mailbase: SUSPEND MAIL [listname]
Mailserv: Not supported.
Majordomo: Not supported.
Resume receipt of messages:
Listproc: SET [listname] MAIL ACK
-- or --
SET [listname] MAIL DIGEST
LISTSERV: SET [listname] MAIL
-- or --
SET [listname] DIGEST
Mailbase: RESUME MAIL [listname]
Mailserv: Not supported.
Majordomo: Not supported.
Receive copies of your own messages:
Listproc: SET [listname] MAIL ACK
LISTSERV: SET [listname] REPRO
(to simply receive an automatic
acknowledgement that your message has been
sent to the list, use:)
SET [listname] ACK
Mailbase: Standard feature; you always receive your own
messages.
Mailserv: Same as mailbase.
Majordomo: Same as mailbase.
Do not receive copies of your own messages:
Listproc: SET [listname] MAIL NOACK
LISTSERV: SET [listname] NOREPRO
Mailbase: Not supported.
Mailserv: Not supported.
Majordomo: Not supported.
Obtain a list of subscribers:
Listproc: RECIPIENTS [listname]
LISTSERV: REVIEW [listname] F=MAIL
(can also be sorted by name or by country:)
REVIEW [listname] BY NAME F=MAIL
-- or --
REVIEW [listname] BY COUNTRY F=MAIL
Mailbase: REVIEW [listname]
Mailserv: SEND/LIST [listname]
Majordomo: WHO [listname]
Obtain a list of archive files:
Listproc: INDEX [listname]
LISTSERV: INDEX [listname]
Mailbase: INDEX [listname]
Mailserv: INDEX [listname]
Majordomo: INDEX [listname]
Retrieve an archive file:
Listproc: GET [listname] [filename]
(e.g., GET LAW-LIB feb94)
LISTSERV: GET [filename] [filetype] [listname] F=MAIL
(e.g., GET INT-LAW LOG9406 INT-LAW F=MAIL)
Mailbase: SEND [listname] [filename]
(e.g., SEND LAW-EUROPE 05-1994)
Mailserv: SEND [filename]
(e.g., GET ENVIROLAW smith.txt)
Majordomo: GET [listname] [filename]
(e.g., GET ELAW-J BOYLE.TXT)
Search the archives for keywords (where available--some lists do
not keep archives):
Listproc: SEARCH [listname] "[keywords]"
Boolean searches are possible using the
symbols "&" (and), "|" (or), and "~" (not).
For example, to search for "mead" or "mdc" in
law-lib, use the command
SEARCH LAW-LIB "mead | mdc"
LISTSERV: LISTSERV uses a sophisticated and powerful
search engine that does lots of neat things
like finding "sounds like" matches; however,
it uses a difficult, batch-coded search
language to construct queries. I find it
useful to keep a "template" file in my
Internet account, and then edit the file as
appropriate when I need to do a search.
Here's the search file:
// JOB Echo=No
Database Search DD=Rules
//Rules DD *
Search nafta in int-law since 93/6/1
Index
/*
To run a search, send this file in an e-mail
message to LISTSERV@[host]. The Search line
can be modified as needed. The date is
optional; Boolean combinations, nesting with
parentheses, and a great number of other
capabilities are supported. For a full
description of LISTSERV search functions,
send the command
GET LISTDB MEMO F=MAIL
to LISTSERV@UMINN1.BITNET.
Once you've received a list of messages
matching your query, send another message to
LISTSERV@[host] to retrieve the specific
messages you want:
// JOB Echo=No
Database Search DD=Rules
//Rules DD *
Search nafta in int-law since 93/6/1
Print all of 636 637 640
/*
Mailbase: Archives of Mailbase lists are searchable
through the Mailbase Gopher (gopher
mailbase.ac.uk). Mailbase does not support
batch searching by e-mail request.
Mailserv: Not supported.
Majordomo: Not supported.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
James Milles Voice: (314) 658-2759
Head of Computer Services FAX: (314) 658-2966
Saint Louis University Law Library millesjg@sluvca.slu.edu
3700 Lindell Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63108
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 03:56:00 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id JAA09380; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 09:38:20 GMT
Received: from ifi.uio.no by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id CAA09374; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 02:38:07 -0700
Received: from surt.ifi.uio.no (1232@surt.ifi.uio.no [129.240.76.2]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.8.1/ifi2.4)
id ; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 11:40:48 +0200
From: Kjetil Torgrim Homme
Received: (from kjetilho@localhost) by surt.ifi.uio.no ; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 11:40:46 +0200
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 11:40:46 +0200
Message-Id: <199407070940.1954.surt.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no>
To: MILLESJG@sluvca.slu.edu
CC: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-reply-to: Jim Milles's message of Wed, 06 Jul 1994 10:01:39 -0600 (CST) <01HEDREY3LDO8WXNGZ@SLUVCA.SLU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Discussion Lists: Mail Server Commands
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
One thing missing is how to specify your mail address with each of
these systems. Am I wrong, or is it only Majordomo which supports this
(IMO, of course) _essential_ feature? I have to resort to faking mail
all too often.
Also, I think you should explain the role of request addresses! They
are not mentioned at all, and I think that there are at least as many
lists with a separate request address as there is LISTPROC and
whatever.
Kjetil T.
PS. Fix your mail software so that it sends mail to the correct
address. The local part of the address should _not_ be tampered with.
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 04:05:47 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id JAA09397; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 09:44:11 GMT
Received: from ifi.uio.no by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id CAA09391; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 02:44:01 -0700
Received: from surt.ifi.uio.no (1232@surt.ifi.uio.no [129.240.76.2]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.8.1/ifi2.4)
id for ; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 11:46:24 +0200
From: Kjetil Torgrim Homme
Received: (from kjetilho@localhost) by surt.ifi.uio.no ; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 11:46:22 +0200
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 11:46:22 +0200
Message-Id: <199407070946.2023.surt.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no>
To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-reply-to: Michelle Dick's message of Wed, 06 Jul 94 19:04:44 -0700 <199407070204.AA23750@bolero.rahul.net>
Subject: Re: How to handle threats from disgruntled members
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
+--- Michelle Dick:
| I did break my long-standing policy and remove this person's
| address. But what do you do when you receive threats like this?
|
I have never received a threat like that, but I would follow my
standard procedure for mis-directed requests first, and hope he would
follow its direction before the "deadline". I probably would have
removed him just in time otherwise.
Here's my form letter:
---------------
In order to unsubscribe, you need to send the message to
********-request@ifi.uio.no. It will reach me there. I'm not
honouring your request, although it would be just as easy for me to do
so, in the hope that you will learn from this, and never mistake the
mailing list address from the request address again.
---------------
(my lists aren't so volumnious that I can't keep an eye on them)
Quite a few are peeved by this letter, but hopefully it helps them
think twice about correct procedure on leaving their next list.
Kjetil T.
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 05:36:14 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id MAA10617; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 12:18:59 GMT
Received: from z.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id FAA10611; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 05:18:47 -0700
Received: from localhost (mmorse@localhost) by z.nsf.gov (8.6.4/8.6.4) id IAA29568; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 08:20:52 -0400
Message-Id: <199407071220.IAA29568@z.nsf.gov>
From: mmorse@nsf.gov (Michael H. Morse)
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 08:20:51 EDT
In-Reply-To: Jim Milles
"Discussion Lists: Mail Server Commands" (Jul 6, 10:01am)
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90)
To: Jim Milles
Subject: Re: Discussion Lists: Mail Server Commands
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
> Feel free to reproduce or distribute as you wish. I appreciate any
> comments or suggestions.
Very write-up. Comment below.
> 2.1. Mail servers can be confusing. Many people use the
> term "listserv" generically, to refer to any list mail
> server program. To make things worse, the Unix
> ListProcessor (listproc) program was originally called
> "listserv," just like REVISED LISTSERV. Many listproc hosts
> are still configured with the name "listserv," and will
> accept commands addressed to "listserv@[host]" as well as to
> the correct name, "listproc@[host]."
This, and the next paragraph imply that it is in some way "correct" to
use the name of the mailing list manager (MLM) as the address to send
to. In fact, it's just a common convention, by no means universal.
To me it's an example of data-coupling that will come back to bite you
eventually.
--Mike
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 06:29:13 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id NAA11332; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 13:19:25 GMT
Received: from ifi.uio.no by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id GAA11325; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 06:19:16 -0700
Received: from surt.ifi.uio.no (1232@surt.ifi.uio.no [129.240.76.2]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.8.1/ifi2.4)
id for ; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 15:22:14 +0200
From: Kjetil Torgrim Homme
Received: (from kjetilho@localhost) by surt.ifi.uio.no ; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 15:22:12 +0200
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 15:22:12 +0200
Message-Id: <199407071322.4378.surt.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no>
To: List-Managers@greatcircle.com
In-reply-to: Michael H. Morse's message of Thu, 7 Jul 1994 08:36:39 EDT <199407071236.IAA29594@z.nsf.gov>
Subject: Re: How to handle threats from disgruntled members
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
+--- Michael Morse:
| Suppose you went to a department store to return something. Instead
| of going to the return desk, you went to the cashier that sold you
| the stuff. The person there tells you, "I'm sorry, you went to the
| wrong desk. You have to go to the right desk. Yes, I could just as
| easily accept your return here, and save you some trouble, but then
| you'll never learn the correct way to return things to this store."
| Would you still shop there? Would you have a nice feeling about that
| person? Would you appreciate being educated?
|
Poor analogy. Make it something like this:
Suppose you went to a department store to return something. Instead of
going to the return desk, you ask everyone in the store if they can
help you. Eventually, you come across one of the employees who's off
duty, and who tells you: "I could follow you over to the returns desk
and help you, but I'd rather you walked over there yourself and asked
whoever's standing there." _I_ would feel silly for bothering so many
people needlessly.
However, I have added a paragraph to my text, perhaps making it
clearer why I do this.
-----
> You have just sent your request to hundreds of people worldwide
> instead of using the proper channel.
>
> In order to unsubscribe, you need to send the message to
> ********-request@ifi.uio.no. It will reach me there. I'm not
> honouring your request, although it would be just as easy for me to do
> so, in the hope that you will learn from this, and never mistake the
> mailing list address from the request address again.
-----
Kjetil T.
PS. Of course, there may be something subtle in my way of expression
which puts off native speakers. Suggestions for improvements in
personal mail, please.
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 06:35:51 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id MAA10764; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 12:27:52 GMT
Received: from SUVM.SYR.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id FAA10750; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 05:27:35 -0700
Received: from spider.syr.edu by SUVM.SYR.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with TCP;
Thu, 07 Jul 94 08:31:06 LCL
Received: by spider.syr.edu (5.0/Spike-2.0)
id AA11782; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 08:32:23 +0500
Message-Id: <9407071232.AA11782@spider.syr.edu>
To: Michelle Dick
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com, jmwobus@mailbox.syr.edu
Subject: Re: How to handle threats from disgruntled members
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 06 Jul 1994 19:04:44 PDT."
<199407070204.AA23750@bolero.rahul.net>
Date: Thu, 07 Jul 1994 08:32:21 -0400
From: "John M. Wobus"
content-length: 897
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
In message <199407070204.AA23750@bolero.rahul.net>you write:
>I recently received the following threat (posted to the list) from a
>member of my list (who has never sent a remove request to the request
>address): ...
My advice is:
(1) Take the person off the list.
(2) Send a reminder to the list as to how to get off. Unfortunately,
the person who can't deal with all the mail and is desperate
to get off may well miss it, but it can't hurt.
(3) Send the person a calm, reasoned message about what is wrong with
what they did and what they should have done. Write it and wait a
day or two before posting it. Remove any trace of animosity no
matter how much they deserve it: this is business, not pleasure.
(4) Forward their original message to their postmaster and network
provider as well as cc your reply. Forward/cc any followups.
John Wobus
Syracuse University
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 06:56:06 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id MAA10877; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 12:33:08 GMT
Received: from z.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id FAA10869; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 05:32:59 -0700
Received: from localhost (mmorse@localhost) by z.nsf.gov (8.6.4/8.6.4) id IAA29594; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 08:36:39 -0400
Message-Id: <199407071236.IAA29594@z.nsf.gov>
From: mmorse@nsf.gov (Michael H. Morse)
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 08:36:39 EDT
In-Reply-To: Kjetil Torgrim Homme
"Re: How to handle threats from disgruntled members" (Jul 7, 11:46am)
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90)
To: Kjetil Torgrim Homme , List-Managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: How to handle threats from disgruntled members
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
> Quite a few are peeved by this letter,
And rightly so.
> but hopefully it helps them
> think twice about correct procedure on leaving their next list.
Actually, it mostly allows you to look down on them. In the words of
Kris Kristofferson, "Everybody needs somebody they can look down on, If
you can't find nobody else, than he'p yourself to me."
Suppose you went to a department store to return something. Instead of
going to the return desk, you went to the cashier that sold you the
stuff. The person there tells you, "I'm sorry, you went to the wrong
desk. You have to go to the right desk. Yes, I could just as easily
accept your return here, and save you some trouble, but then you'll
never learn the correct way to return things to this store." Would you
still shop there? Would you have a nice feeling about that person?
Would you appreciate being educated?
OK, so maybe you don't care about what people think of you. The
problem is that most people unsubscribe from lists very rarely in
their lives. Also, they are not really all that interested in
learning computer geek stuff. As a result, no amount of insults will
teach them.
--Mike
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 07:05:45 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id LAA10213; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 11:55:16 GMT
Received: from slopoke.mlb.semi.harris.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id EAA10207; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 04:55:05 -0700
Received: from ace.mlb.semi.harris.com by slopoke.mlb.semi.harris.com (4.0/SMI-4.0)
id AA00534; Thu, 7 Jul 94 07:57:59 EDT
Received: from rtfm.UUCP by ace.mlb.semi.harris.com (4.1/SMI-4.1-jmb+uucp)
id AA07348; Thu, 7 Jul 94 07:57:57 EDT
Received: by rtfm.mlb.fl.us (4.1/SMI-4.1)
id AA12921; Thu, 7 Jul 94 07:54:36 EDT
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 07:48:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: Grayson Walker
Subject: Re: How to handle threats from disgruntled members
To: Michelle Dick
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <199407070204.AA23750@bolero.rahul.net>
Message-Id:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
> I run a high-volume list with 1700+ and about 50K a day in volume. I
> use the standard list-request@site address for administrative
> requests.
> Because of the volume, the fact that I don't always read all the
> traffic on the list, and because I don't wish to condone improper use
> of the posting address, I do not process requests sent to the posting
> address. All new members are sent explicit instructions when they
> join the list.
> I recently received the following threat (posted to the list) from a
^^^^^^ strong word
> member of my list (who has never sent a remove request to the request
> address):
>
message - plea - to be removed deleted.
>
> I did break my long-standing policy and remove this person's address.
> But what do you do when you receive threats like this?
The members of the list are YOUR customers. Customers expect service,
nothing more. Your list is a service. I've seen a few complaints from
people whose customers don't follow the "correct" procedure -- almost
as if there is an intent to "punish" the customer for failing to follow
the procedure. Absurd! The frustration of your customer suggests that
the procedure is flawed. I am on MANY lists, and it is very common for
people to send administrative requests to the entire lists. The solution:
adapt to the customer.
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 07:16:05 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id MAA11129; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 12:59:24 GMT
Received: from cs.umb.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id FAA11117; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 05:59:02 -0700
Received: from terminus.cs.umb.edu by cs.umb.edu with SMTP id AA16276
(5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Thu, 7 Jul 1994 09:01:33 -0400
Message-Id: <199407071301.AA16276@cs.umb.edu>
To: Michelle Dick
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: How to handle threats from disgruntled members
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 06 Jul 1994 19:04:44 PDT."
<199407070204.AA23750@bolero.rahul.net>
Date: Thu, 07 Jul 1994 09:01:32 -0400
From: "John P. Rouillard"
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
I send them a copy of the instructions for being removed from the
list. In the case you mentioned, above I would tell them that they can
not not be removed from the list unless they use the proper list
removal directions. At the end of the instructions, add a blurb that says:
It is possible that you can't get email to the proper address, just in
case that may be a problem, I have forwarded this message to your
sites adminstrative and technical contacts, who should be able to
diagnose the problem.
(You don't mention that the only problem is the one between the
senders ears). Then CC the sites technical/administrative liason as
listed in whois. Of course you do include the orignal message verbatim
just as if you were responding to it.
In message <199407070204.AA23750@bolero.rahul.net>,
Michelle Dick writes:
>
>I run a high-volume list with 1700+ and about 50K a day in volume. I
>use the standard list-request@site address for administrative
>requests.
>
>Because of the volume, the fact that I don't always read all the
>traffic on the list, and because I don't wish to condone improper use
>of the posting address, I do not process requests sent to the posting
>address. All new members are sent explicit instructions when they
>join the list.
>
>I recently received the following threat (posted to the list) from a
>member of my list (who has never sent a remove request to the request
>address):
>
>>Date: Wed, 6 Jul 1994 17:47:56 -0700
>>Message-Id: <199407070047.RAA06372@pacific.pacific.net>
>>X-Sender: dejong@pacific.pacific.net
>>To: fatfree@hustle.rahul.net
>>From: dejong@pacific.pacific.net (Philip DeJong)
>>Subject: REMOVE
>>
>>I am losing my sense of humor with his nightmare of a group. I pulled
>
>> 108 messages out of my mailbox from the weekend. I have requested
>
>> remove now for the last 2 weeks. If I am not off this group by yesterday
>> I am seriously considering the following alternatives.
>> 1. Repost the three most disgusting stories I can find from
>>alt.sex.etc. 2. Repost the largest binary picture file I can find of a
>
>>suitable fat person.
>> 3. Change my email adress and sue.
>>
>> I understand from a previous posting that these removes are done by hand.
>
>> I have been patient, but this group has turned by mail box into a dump.
>
>> PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
>
>>
>>Phil DeJong
>>dejong@pacific.net
>
>I did break my long-standing policy and remove this person's address.
>But what do you do when you receive threats like this?
>
>--
>Michelle Dick artemis@rahul.net East Palo Alto, CA
> Owner, FATFREE Vegetarian Mailing List
-- John
John Rouillard
Senior Systems Consultant (SERL Project) University of Massachusetts at Boston
rouilj@cs.umb.edu (preferred) Boston, MA, (617) 287-6480
==============================================================================
My employers don't acknowledge my existence much less my opinions.
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 07:46:41 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id OAA12137; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 14:43:01 GMT
Received: from yukon.cren.org by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id HAA12131; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 07:42:54 -0700
Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by yukon.cren.org with SMTP id <79972(6)>; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 10:45:49 -0400
To: List-Managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: How to handle threats from disgruntled members
In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 07 Jul 1994 05:46:22 EDT."
<199407070946.2023.surt.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no>
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 10:45:41 -0400
From: Marco Hernandez
Message-Id: <94Jul7.104549edt.79972(6)@yukon.cren.org>
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
> +--- Michelle Dick:
> | I did break my long-standing policy and remove this person's
> | address. But what do you do when you receive threats like this?
> |
>
> I have never received a threat like that, but I would follow my
> standard procedure for mis-directed requests first, and hope he would
> follow its direction before the "deadline". I probably would have
> removed him just in time otherwise.
>
I have received a threat which was similar (actually on of my list
owners did) and before I knew it, my system was being bomarded. The
guy set up a loop via the elm filter program ... This was because he
could not unsub from a listproc list (He never bothered to read the
welcome message or contact the owner or get the on line help ??? You
figure).
I eventually had to set up zmailer to refuse all mail from the host,
so he probably got all the bounced when his mailer timed out ... But
I think there is little you can do. Put out an FAQ to the lists twice
per month ... (I try and stress this to the list owners) ... There
is no protection against ignorant people ...
/marco
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 07:55:18 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id OAA11993; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 14:33:28 GMT
Received: from noc4.dccs.upenn.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id HAA11985; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 07:33:15 -0700
Received: from GYNKO.CIRC.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu
id AA15778; Thu, 7 Jul 94 10:36:11 -0400
Received: by gynko.circ.upenn.edu
id AA27377; Wed, 6 Jul 94 10:17:25 EDT
From: rsk@gynko.circ.upenn.edu (Rich Kulawiec)
Posted-Date: Wed, 6 Jul 1994 10:17:25 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <9407061417.AA27377@gynko.circ.upenn.edu>
Subject: Re: How to handle threats from disgruntled members
To: gwalker@rtfm.mlb.fl.us (Grayson Walker)
Date: Wed, 6 Jul 1994 10:17:25 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: artemis@rahul.net, list-managers@greatcircle.com
In-Reply-To: from "Grayson Walker" at Jul 7, 94 07:48:16 am
Organization: Ditka Policy Institute
X-Last-River: Amoskeag
X-Last-Cd: Santana, "Sacred Fire"
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21]
Content-Type: text
Content-Length: 1192
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
>The members of the list are YOUR customers. Customers expect service,
>nothing more. Your list is a service. I've seen a few complaints from
>people whose customers don't follow the "correct" procedure -- almost
>as if there is an intent to "punish" the customer for failing to follow
>the procedure. Absurd! The frustration of your customer suggests that
>the procedure is flawed. I am on MANY lists, and it is very common for
>people to send administrative requests to the entire lists. The solution:
>adapt to the customer.
The members of the mailing lists that I run will become my "customers"
when they begin to pay me a fee for the "service" that I am providing
to them. Until that happens, the mailing lists will be run in any
fashion I choose; those who do not care for what they receive are always
free to unsubscribe and/or seek other mailing lists and/or start their own.
The presence of users who cannot manage to learn to use such simple
conventions as the "-request" address does not indicate a "flawed"
procedure; it's just a reflection of a difficulty encountered in
adapating to network culture. Given time and consistent enforcement,
this difficulty will pass.
---Rsk
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 08:16:09 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id PAA12374; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 15:13:30 GMT
Received: from athens.dis.anl.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id IAA12368; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 08:13:10 -0700
Received: from athens.dis.anl.gov (bordeaux.dis.anl.gov [146.137.176.15]) by athens.dis.anl.gov (8.6.8.1/8.6.6) with SMTP id KAA01306; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 10:15:49 -0500
Message-Id: <199407071515.KAA01306@athens.dis.anl.gov>
To: Grayson Walker
cc: Michelle Dick , list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: How to handle threats from disgruntled members
In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 07 Jul 1994 07:48:16 CDT."
Date: Thu, 07 Jul 1994 10:15:46 -0500
From: William LeFebvre
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
You wrote:
> Date: Thu, 07 Jul 1994 07:48:16 CDT
> From: Grayson Walker
> To: Michelle Dick
> Subject: Re: How to handle threats from disgruntled members
>
> The members of the list are YOUR customers. Customers expect service,
> nothing more. Your list is a service.
My list is a service which is provided free of charge and for which I
receive absolutely zero renumeration. I am a volunteer. This places
these so-called "customers" in a very different category. My primary
concern is providing an adequate forum for discussion while minimizing
my time commitment. This is, I believe, a very reasonable stand to
take since I am a volunteer for this task.
This "customer" expectation you have described is only valid if these
folks were indeed paying a list maintainer for the service. Then they
would and should reasonably expect to be catered to, pampered, and be
treated as if "the customer is always right".
But that's NOT what we have here. We have volunteers donating
time, resources, and knowledge to provide an information resource.
That is no longer a seller/customer relationship. It is now more
along the lines of a cooperative collection of participants.
> I've seen a few complaints from
> people whose customers don't follow the "correct" procedure -- almost
> as if there is an intent to "punish" the customer for failing to follow
> the procedure. Absurd!
Only if you view the mailing list users as customers have paid for a
service. They have paid nothing for it, and the person running the
show has received nothing for his efforts.
It is not all that absurd when the volunteer is trying to do
everything he can to keep the monster of a list from consuming all his
spare time (some of us DO have real lives, you know). So let's look
at it from the other end. You'd think that list users would have some
sympathy for those of us who are donating a substantial portion of our
time to providing them with an information source, and would be
willing to do what they can to help us out, by following the simple
guidelines we set forth. These aren't arbitrary guidelines: they
exist to make things a little easier for us. Instead all we get from
some of these folks is complaints about things not working right,
complaints about us not acting on our requests within finve minutes
after they sent it, complaints about the archive site, or the absence
of an archive site, or about not getting their mail, or about getting
too much mail, or about people abusing the list, or about people
sending out remove requests to the list, etc, etc, etc, ad nauseum.
I guess I've been doing this for too long.....
> The frustration of your customer suggests that
> the procedure is flawed. I am on MANY lists, and it is very common for
> people to send administrative requests to the entire lists. The solution:
> adapt to the customer.
But that one "customer" has just ticked off thousands of other
"customers". So which "customer" do we adapt to? The one who sent
the message, or the hundreds whining about it? If the former, then we
quietly process the request and everyone gets used to the idea that
that's how administrative requests are handled, and more "customers"
are inconvenienced by people sending administrative mail to the entire
list. If the latter, then we do something similar to the very thing
you are objecting to. Either way we make some of our "customers"
unhappy. So NOW what do you suggest?
William LeFebvre
Decision and Information Sciences
Argonne National Laboratory
lefebvre@dis.anl.gov
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 10:20:11 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id RAA13896; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 17:00:39 GMT
Received: from suntan.Tandem.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id KAA13880; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 10:00:14 -0700
Received: from devserver.dsg.tandem.com by suntan.Tandem.com (4.1/suntan5.940222) for list-managers@greatcircle.com
id AA29796; Thu, 7 Jul 94 10:01:49 PDT
Received: from work.dsg.tandem.com by devserver.dsg.tandem.com (4.1/6main.931028)
id AA15889; Thu, 7 Jul 94 10:01:48 PDT
Received: by work.dsg.tandem.com (4.1/6leaf.931028)
id AA05721; Thu, 7 Jul 94 10:01:42 PDT
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 94 10:01:42 PDT
From: scott@dsg.tandem.com (mueller_scott)
Message-Id: <9407071701.AA05721@work.dsg.tandem.com>
To: gwalker@rtfm.mlb.fl.us
Subject: Re: How to handle threats from disgruntled members
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
>I am on MANY lists, and it is very common for people to send administrative
>requests to the entire lists. The solution: adapt to the customer.
Sorry, wrong answer. Thank you for playing.
As the person who wrote the first pass at the sub/unsub filter Brent has in
Majordomo, I rather disagree.
Why?
Well, because sometimes the list administrator is a kind volunteer who does
nothing but run the list. He/she does not read the list, she/he has no
interest whatsoever in the list. This is not a hypothetical case; there's
a fellow up in Canada (nstn.ca?) that hosts lists at his site because he's
got the software, and when you've got X number of lists, what's one more?
I can pretty well guarantee you that he's not reading all of the lists he
hosts.
Shoot, with some software (e.g. BITNET LISTSERV) the list can be almost
entirely automated, no human intervention whatsoever. The thing is, you can
yell, scream, shout, whatever, at the list, and no-one will be able to help
you.
--
Scott Hazen Mueller scott@zorch.sf-bay.org
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 11:58:49 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id SAA15668; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 18:37:51 GMT
Received: from pooh.ucsf.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id LAA15656; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 11:37:37 -0700
Received: from localhost by pooh.ucsf.edu (8.6.4/GSC4.24)
id LAA29542; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 11:40:35 -0700
Message-Id: <199407071840.LAA29542@pooh.ucsf.edu>
Subject: Re: How to handle threats from disgruntled members
To: artemis@rahul.net (Michelle Dick)
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 11:40:34 -0800 (PDT)
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <199407070204.AA23750@bolero.rahul.net> from "Michelle Dick" at Jul 6, 94 07:04:44 pm
From: troyer@cgl.ucsf.edu (John M. Troyer)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22]
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length: 1691
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
> Because of the volume, the fact that I don't always read all the
> traffic on the list, and because I don't wish to condone improper use
> of the posting address, I do not process requests sent to the posting
> address. All new members are sent explicit instructions when they
> join the list.
This is a human problem and can only be taken so far with software fixes and
filters.
Since you don't read the list, how about asking for volunteers who do
read your list to be 'deputized' as list.cops? These junior G-men could
take several form letters (possibly just the welcome instructions or FAQ
written by you) and send them out to people who are 'having difficulties.'
I think this would be very appropriate for a high-volume list: there's no
reason to do it all yourself. Some problems to avoid:
have only one or two 'deputies', since you want to avoid FAQ-bombing the
person who may already be overloaded with mail from the list
the letters they send should explicitly state who's in charge (you) so
that the helpers don't get asked to unsubscribe, retrieve files, etc.
if the helpers shouldn't act like moderators and discuss content and
appropriateness of letters unless they want to be treated like
moderators.
you probably want to avoid too much formality (rotating shifts, who's
'on call,' etc.), since you're trying to save yourself work, not make
more of it.
caveat: I haven't ever actually tried this, so I don't know if it would
work. But these kinds of volunteers naturally arise in many lists and
newsgroups (I know I have sent out FAQs to people), and I don't see why
formally asking someone to do it would be any different.
john
troyer@cgl.ucsf.edu
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 12:18:31 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id TAA16237; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 19:05:53 GMT
Received: from ftp.std.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id MAA16229; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 12:05:41 -0700
Received: from world.std.com by ftp.std.com (8.6.8.1/Spike-8-1.0)
id PAA20164; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 15:08:19 -0400
Received: by world.std.com (5.65c/Spike-2.0)
id AA27882; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 15:08:17 -0400
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 15:08:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: Sharon Shea
Subject: Re: How to handle threats from disgruntled members
To: Rich Kulawiec
Cc: Grayson Walker , artemis@rahul.net,
list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <9407061417.AA27377@gynko.circ.upenn.edu>
Message-Id:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
>
> The members of the mailing lists that I run will become my "customers"
> when they begin to pay me a fee for the "service" that I am providing
> to them. Until that happens, the mailing lists will be run in any
> fashion I choose; those who do not care for what they receive are always
> free to unsubscribe and/or seek other mailing lists and/or start their own.
>
I have to agree with this one. I try to give list members what they want,
but I'm putting in the time, effort (and money!) - they are privileged
guests. It does spoil the party when guests get out of hand!
-Sharon
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 12:58:16 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id TAA16694; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 19:46:57 GMT
Received: from slopoke.mlb.semi.harris.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id MAA16688; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 12:46:38 -0700
Received: from ace.mlb.semi.harris.com by slopoke.mlb.semi.harris.com (4.0/SMI-4.0)
id AA14065; Thu, 7 Jul 94 15:49:36 EDT
Received: from rtfm.UUCP by ace.mlb.semi.harris.com (4.1/SMI-4.1-jmb+uucp)
id AA09676; Thu, 7 Jul 94 15:49:35 EDT
Received: by rtfm.mlb.fl.us (4.1/SMI-4.1)
id AA15416; Thu, 7 Jul 94 15:46:52 EDT
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 15:32:08 -0400 (EDT)
From: Grayson Walker
Subject: Attitudes, Service, and Mailing Lists
To: William LeFebvre
Cc: Grayson Walker , Michelle Dick ,
list-managers@greatcircle.com
In-Reply-To: <199407071515.KAA01306@athens.dis.anl.gov>
Message-Id:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
> > The members of the list are YOUR customers. Customers expect service,
> > nothing more. Your list is a service.
>
> My list is a service which is provided free of charge and for which I
> receive absolutely zero renumeration. I am a volunteer. This places
> these so-called "customers" in a very different category. My primary
> concern is providing an adequate forum for discussion while minimizing
> my time commitment. This is, I believe, a very reasonable stand to
> take since I am a volunteer for this task.
I recognize this as mildly polemic. Your position may have been defensible
in the Arpanet and early Internet days, but not today. Today we have lots
of mailing list members who pay for access to our 'Net. Some of them
pay non-trivial fees -- I've seen some who pay on a per message basis --
they get excited when a list upchucks hundreds of null messages -- as the
Commercial Real Estate list did last weekend. YOU and I may not receive
financial compensation, but there are lots of paying customers. Just one
more piece of a complex and flawed process. They are customers.
We're also talking about an orientation towards service, and, yes plain
courtesy. I know you've seen the (fortunately) occasional arrogance that
some self-styled experts dump upon the neophyte. This must end.
> This "customer" expectation you have described is only valid if these
> folks were indeed paying a list maintainer for the service. Then they
I disagree. If they paying somebody for a service you provide without
compensation, I think you're undervaluing your service. Regardless of the
prices, there is a service-customer relationship here.
> But that one "customer" has just ticked off thousands of other
> "customers". So which "customer" do we adapt to? The one who sent
> the message, or the hundreds whining about it? If the former, then we
> quietly process the request and everyone gets used to the idea that
> that's how administrative requests are handled, and more "customers"
> are inconvenienced by people sending administrative mail to the entire
> list. If the latter, then we do something similar to the very thing
> you are objecting to. Either way we make some of our "customers"
> unhappy. So NOW what do you suggest?
Simple. To which customer do we adapt? All of them. Until the
processes deal with all the needs of the service providers and their
consumer/customer, the processes are flawed. Just because we cannot solve
the problem given today's software or technology in no way prevents us
from recognizing the flaws in the processes.
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 20:23:35 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id UAA17194; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 20:23:35 GMT
Received: from saimiri.primate.wisc.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id NAA17188; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 13:23:14 -0700
Received: by saimiri.primate.wisc.edu;
id PAA22644; 8.6.8.1/41.8; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 15:26:25 -0500
From: Software Development
Message-Id: <199407072026.PAA22644@saimiri.primate.wisc.edu>
Subject: Re: Attitudes, Service, and Mailing Lists
To: gwalker@rtfm.mlb.fl.us (Grayson Walker)
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 15:26:24 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
In-Reply-To: from "Grayson Walker" at Jul 7, 94 03:32:08 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21]
Content-Type: text
Content-Length: 1730
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
> I recognize this as mildly polemic. Your position may have been defensible
> in the Arpanet and early Internet days, but not today. Today we have lots
> of mailing list members who pay for access to our 'Net. Some of them
> pay non-trivial fees -- I've seen some who pay on a per message basis --
> they get excited when a list upchucks hundreds of null messages -- as the
> Commercial Real Estate list did last weekend. YOU and I may not receive
> financial compensation, but there are lots of paying customers. Just one
> more piece of a complex and flawed process. They are customers.
They may be customers, and they may be paying, but this paragraph
cuts no ice with me, and I suspect with many of use who run lists for
nothing. I sympathize with subscribers who have to pay per-message
when they get too many messages, but not overly much. Your bringing
"paying customer" into the equation has little meaning for me. They're
paying *someone else* to get the messages. Someone *else* is making
money off my volunteer efforts, and you're expecting me to shoulder the
burden of providing paid-level support? Sorry.
I'm not advocating telling subscribers to take a hike, but they're
accessing a service which is offered by me for free. If they have to
pay someone else to get it, that doesn't obligate me to provide the
level of support that would come were I billing them for access.
> I disagree. If they paying somebody for a service you provide without
> compensation, I think you're undervaluing your service. Regardless of the
> prices, there is a service-customer relationship here.
Again, they're not paying me. Someone else is issuing the bill.
And taking in the money.
Paul DuBois
dubois@primate.wisc.edu
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 20:30:30 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id UAA17337; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 20:30:30 GMT
Received: from d.ecc.engr.uky.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id NAA17330; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 13:30:12 -0700
Received: from s.ecc.engr.uky.edu by d.ecc.engr.uky.edu (5.59/25-eef)
id AA02758; Thu, 7 Jul 94 16:20:04 EDT
Received: by s.ecc.engr.uky.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1)
id AA06433; Thu, 7 Jul 94 16:23:10 EDT
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 94 16:23:10 EDT
From: morgan@engr.uky.edu (Wes Morgan)
Message-Id: <9407072023.AA06433@s.ecc.engr.uky.edu>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: Attitudes, Service and Mailing Lists
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
>I recognize this as mildly polemic. Your position may have been defensible
>in the Arpanet and early Internet days, but not today. Today we have lots
>of mailing list members who pay for access to our 'Net.
Agreed - but they aren't my customers. They may be paying someone
else to get into the same general location as my service, but they
are NOT my paying customers. There is no distinction in my mind
between compuserve.com, aol.com, flamtap.lex.ky.us, saarbrucken.de,
and ncsc.mil; they're all the same thing to my list.
>We're also talking about an orientation towards service, and, yes plain
>courtesy. I know you've seen the (fortunately) occasional arrogance that
>some self-styled experts dump upon the neophyte. This must end.
Agreed - the carrot wins more often than the stick. However, one must
yet wield both, no?
>> But that one "customer" has just ticked off thousands of other
>> "customers". So which "customer" do we adapt to? The one who sent
>> the message, or the hundreds whining about it?
>
>Simple. To which customer do we adapt? All of them.
I don't know of too many services which cater to every whim/need of every
customer with any success *or* longevity. "Adapting" to 5000 subscribers
gives me nightmares - this is a hobby/contribution for me, not a business.
>Until the processes deal with all the needs of the service providers
>and their consumer/customer, the processes are flawed.
Hmm...it seems to me that, if the processes ever managed to "deal
with" all the needs of the providers and customers, there would be
no need for new processes.
>Just because
>we cannot solve the problem given today's software or technology in
>no way prevents us from recognizing the flaws in the processes.
In the interest of providing the best service to the largest number
of "customers," I may require *all* customers to follow a certain
procedure. I see little fault with this, in *any* business environ-
ment; why should we avoid it here?
--Wes
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 13:38:35 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id UAA17227; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 20:24:30 GMT
Received: from enfm.utcc.utoronto.ca by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id NAA17211; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 13:24:13 -0700
Received: by enfm.utcc.utoronto.ca id <607880>; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 16:27:11 -0400
Subject: Re: Attitudes, Service, and Mailing Lists
From: "C. Harald Koch"
To: gwalker@rtfm.mlb.fl.us (Grayson Walker)
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 16:27:09 -0400
Cc: lefebvre@athens.dis.anl.gov, gwalker@rtfm.mlb.fl.us, artemis@rahul.net,
list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: from "Grayson Walker" at Jul 7, 94 03:32:08 pm
Phone: +1 416 978 0992
Organization: UTCC Network & Operations Services, External Network Fac. Mgmt.
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length: 1835
Message-Id: <94Jul7.162711edt.607880@enfm.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
> I recognize this as mildly polemic. Your position may have been defensible
> in the Arpanet and early Internet days, but not today. Today we have lots
> of mailing list members who pay for access to our 'Net. Some of them
> pay non-trivial fees -- I've seen some who pay on a per message basis --
> they get excited when a list upchucks hundreds of null messages -- as the
> Commercial Real Estate list did last weekend. YOU and I may not receive
> financial compensation, but there are lots of paying customers. Just one
> more piece of a complex and flawed process. They are customers.
I'm sorry, I still think you're wrong. Someone else suggested a 'guest'
metaphor; this is perfect, as far as I'm concerned.
The people you are referring to are paying a network access provider for
network access. They are *not* paying *me* for my mailing list. You are
thinking along the lines of monolithic information service providers like
Compu$erve; this model does not hold for the Internet.
I don't have the right to abuse your hospitality just because I paid tolls
on the roads I used to drive to your house; similarly, I don't have the
right to abuse you or your mailing list just because I'm paying a network
service provider for access.
There *are* organisations out there that run 'commercial' information
services over the Internet; you subscribe to their publication, and they use
the Internet to deliver it to you. An excellent example of this is ClariNet,
which delivers news-wire information over NetNews. *They* have customers; I
do not.
--
C. Harald Koch, Network Analyst | "It is fruitless to attempt to indoctrinate
University of Toronto | a super-annuated canine with innovative
External Networking Fac. Mgmt. | maneuvers."
chk@utcc.utoronto.ca | -Dr. SNMP, The Simple Times, v2n3
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 20:39:44 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id UAA17468; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 20:39:44 GMT
Received: from hustle.rahul.net by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id NAA17461; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 13:39:36 -0700
Received: from bolero.rahul.net by hustle.rahul.net with SMTP id AA17029
(5.67a8/IDA-1.5 for ); Thu, 7 Jul 1994 13:42:31 -0700
Received: by bolero.rahul.net id AA09575
(5.67a8/IDA-1.5 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM); Thu, 7 Jul 1994 13:42:29 -0700
Message-Id: <199407072042.AA09575@bolero.rahul.net>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: How to handle threats from disgruntled members
Date: Thu, 07 Jul 94 13:42:29 -0700
From: Michelle Dick
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Resolution:
I removed the poster from the list, had his address blocked from
posting to the list, sent a copy of the email-bomb threat to his
postmaster and asked that they inform the user of proper email
behavior.
The postmaster wrote back, apologizing for the user and letting me
know that he had so advised the user.
Note that I was not complaining about errant add/drop requests in my
initial letter, but rather the threat to send large binaries to my
large list (which is a simple reflector at this time). Given the
damage potential, I have no choice but to take all threats seriously.
Proper subscription info is sent in the new-subscriber letter as well
as posted every other week or so. I also happen to know that several
of my subscribers do email errant requests with the proper
information. I, myself, do not read all the posted messages on the
list (it's an extremely high-volume list), so cannot individually
email responses to errant requests. I spend 10-15 hours per week
maintaining the list and the associated recipe archive.
--
Michelle Dick artemis@rahul.net East Palo Alto, CA
Owner, FATFREE Vegetarian Mailing List
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 13:45:10 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id UAA16967; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 20:10:21 GMT
Received: from mycroft.GreatCircle.COM by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id NAA16946; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 13:09:53 -0700
Message-Id: <199407072009.NAA16946@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>
To: Grayson Walker
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: Attitudes, Service, and Mailing Lists
In-reply-to: Your message of Thu, 7 Jul 1994 15:32:08 -0400 (EDT)
Date: Thu, 07 Jul 1994 13:09:48 -0700
From: Brent Chapman
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Grayson Walker writes:
# > > The members of the list are YOUR customers. Customers expect service,
# > > nothing more. Your list is a service.
# >
# > My list is a service which is provided free of charge and for which I
# > receive absolutely zero renumeration. I am a volunteer. This places
# > these so-called "customers" in a very different category. My primary
# > concern is providing an adequate forum for discussion while minimizing
# > my time commitment. This is, I believe, a very reasonable stand to
# > take since I am a volunteer for this task.
#
# I recognize this as mildly polemic. Your position may have been defensible
# in the Arpanet and early Internet days, but not today. Today we have lots
# of mailing list members who pay for access to our 'Net. Some of them
# pay non-trivial fees -- I've seen some who pay on a per message basis --
# they get excited when a list upchucks hundreds of null messages -- as the
# Commercial Real Estate list did last weekend. YOU and I may not receive
# financial compensation, but there are lots of paying customers. Just one
# more piece of a complex and flawed process. They are customers.
Fine, they're somebody's customers, but they're not _my_ customers. I
didn't solicit their "business". If they want "better service", they
can damn well pay _me_ for it; what they pay somebody else (their
service provider) is irrelevant.
# We're also talking about an orientation towards service, and, yes plain
# courtesy. I know you've seen the (fortunately) occasional arrogance that
# some self-styled experts dump upon the neophyte. This must end.
Talk about arrogance...
# > This "customer" expectation you have described is only valid if these
# > folks were indeed paying a list maintainer for the service. Then they
#
# I disagree. If they paying somebody for a service you provide without
# compensation, I think you're undervaluing your service. Regardless of the
# prices, there is a service-customer relationship here.
OK, fine, I've just decided that Great Circle Associates is going to
charge $10/year for each subscription to List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM,
payable in advance by credit card or check in U.S. dollars drawn on a
U.S. bank. For service problems, you can call our 900 number, and be
billed at $1/minute directly to your phone bill. Non-US customers are
just out of luck when it comes to service calls, because we can't
figure out how an easy way to bill them for it.
Are you telling me that would be an _improvement_?
# Simple. To which customer do we adapt? All of them. Until the
# processes deal with all the needs of the service providers and their
# consumer/customer, the processes are flawed. Just because we cannot solve
# the problem given today's software or technology in no way prevents us
# from recognizing the flaws in the processes.
Tell you what... You run your lists your way, and we'll run ours our
way. Have a good time; thanks for sharing.
-Brent
--
Brent Chapman | Great Circle Associates | Call or email for info about
Brent@GreatCircle.COM | 1057 West Dana Street | upcoming Internet Security
+1 415 962 0841 | Mountain View, CA 94041 | Firewalls Tutorial dates
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 20:46:34 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id UAA17583; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 20:46:34 GMT
Received: from osiris.ac.hmc.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id NAA17576; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 13:46:25 -0700
Received: (from jared@localhost) by osiris.ac.hmc.edu (8.6.8.1/8.6.7) id NAA10230; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 13:49:19 -0700
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 13:49:19 -0700
Message-Id: <199407072049.NAA10230@osiris.ac.hmc.edu>
From: Jared_Rhine@hmc.edu
To: Grayson Walker
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Attitudes, Service, and Mailing Lists
References: <199407071515.KAA01306@athens.dis.anl.gov>
X-Attribution: JRhine
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Grayson> If they paying somebody for a service you provide without
Grayson> compensation, I think you're undervaluing your service. Regardless
Grayson> of the prices, there is a service-customer relationship here.
Certainly not. One cannot establish a customer-service relationship without
the consent of both parties. The list-manager in question has not agreed
(either formally, or informally) to any such relationship, thus no
corresponding responsibilites of such an arrangement apply.
--
Jared_Rhine@hmc.edu | Harvey Mudd College | http://www.hmc.edu/~jared/home.html
"Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its
best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable
one." -- Thomas Paine
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 21:12:17 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id VAA17862; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 21:12:17 GMT
Received: from ftp.std.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id OAA17855; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 14:12:04 -0700
Received: from world.std.com by ftp.std.com (8.6.8.1/Spike-8-1.0)
id RAA29994; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 17:15:07 -0400
Received: by world.std.com (5.65c/Spike-2.0)
id AA02352; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 17:13:18 -0400
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 17:13:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: Sharon Shea
Subject: Re: Attitudes, Service, and Mailing Lists
To: Software Development
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <199407072026.PAA22644@saimiri.primate.wisc.edu>
Message-Id:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
>
> I'm not advocating telling subscribers to take a hike, but they're
> accessing a service which is offered by me for free. If they have to
> pay someone else to get it, that doesn't obligate me to provide the
> level of support that would come were I billing them for access.
Same here. When they sign up for lists, they are requesting an extra
service - one I provide. And since I'm the one paying to have the list on
a commercial provider - the biggest cost is to me - by far.
-Sharon
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 21:56:30 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id VAA18594; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 21:56:30 GMT
Received: from gw1.att.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id OAA18324; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 14:39:00 -0700
Received: from anuxv.UUCP by ig1.att.att.com id AA07581; Thu, 7 Jul 94 17:41:29 EDT
Message-Id: <9407072141.AA07581@ig1.att.att.com>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
From: merchant@anuxv.att.com (s.merchant)
Original-To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Date: 7 Jul 1994 17:03 EDT
Subject: Re: How to handle threats from disgruntled members
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
>The problem is that most people unsubscribe from lists very rarely in
>their lives. Also, they are not really all that interested in
>learning computer geek stuff. As a result, no amount of insults will
>teach them.
That pretty much sums it up. I have a standard message that's firm
but not insulting (I don't think) but makes it quite clear that they
have to resend the request. Based on my experiences, I would recommend
the following:
1. Do not ignore the request as it will generate repeat requests. At
this point, you should be considering the other members of the list
rather than trying to punish the errant one. I send a "canned" message
that tells them the right way to do it, and indicates that they need
to resend the message. However, I delete them anyway at my next
deletion interval (my list is manually administered) even if they
don't.
2. Post periodic reminders. Since this can be construed as noise too,
I try to piggy-back this with other administrative messages or my
own contributions to the list. But then it must be the very first
paragraph, with suitable emphasis.
A good time to do it is just after someone posts to the wrong
address. I find that for some reason, these unsubscription requests
to the whole list seem to cluster together. Perhaps people see the
one message and say, "Oh, so *that's* how one unsubscribes to the
list."
3. I liked to suggestion someone had earlier about capitalizing just the
-REQUEST part of the address; I've used it since and found it helps.
4. I'd like to see a general capability in mailing list servers like
majordomo that allows a "Message of the Day" to be prepended and/or
appended to the *body* of messages sent to the list. However, there
should also be a parameter so that only every N'th message contains
this message--I would set N to about 10 (which would be once every
2 days for my list), and put a 1- or 2-line message at the front.
A more general capability that allowed you to rotate through a small
set of messages would be nice too.
5. Despite all this, you will STILL get messages sent to the whole list.
You have to accept that that's part of what you signed up for when you
decided to be the list owner. The best you can do is to keep the
number small.
Shahrukh Merchant
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 15:18:17 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id WAA18938; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 22:12:56 GMT
Received: from gw1.att.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id PAA18930; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 15:12:40 -0700
Received: from anuxv.UUCP by ig1.att.att.com id AA18675; Thu, 7 Jul 94 18:15:12 EDT
Message-Id: <9407072215.AA18675@ig1.att.att.com>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
From: merchant@anuxv.att.com (s.merchant)
Original-To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Date: 7 Jul 1994 18:00 EDT
Subject: Re: Attitudes, Service, and Mailing Lists
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
>I'm sorry, I still think you're wrong. Someone else suggested a 'guest'
>metaphor; this is perfect, as far as I'm concerned.
Yes, this is a good metaphor, especially since it permits both
viewpoints. And it emphasizes the responsibilities of both parties,
guests and host. It's your party [usually open house], so *you* get to
decide what kind of a host you want to be.
You can take the position that *you're* paying for the food and *you're*
opening up your house to strangers, and *you've* got to deal with
cleaning up; so you are certainly entitled to be strict and throw out
on his ear the first guest who put a moist glass down without a coaster.
Or you can be the gracious host who say, "Oh, that was just an ugly
trinket anyway," when a guest knocks over and breaks your Ming Dynasty
vase, and generally treat all your guests like royalty.
Or something in betweeen.
The point is: it's your list, so you can make it the way you want.
But just as with your real-life guests, you will have the reputation of
being the type of host that you are.
Shahrukh Merchant
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 16:19:19 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id WAA19459; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 22:35:43 GMT
Received: from suntan.Tandem.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id PAA19437; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 15:35:10 -0700
Received: from devserver.dsg.tandem.com by suntan.Tandem.com (4.1/suntan5.940222) for list-managers@greatcircle.com
id AA07155; Thu, 7 Jul 94 15:37:41 PDT
Received: from work.dsg.tandem.com by devserver.dsg.tandem.com (4.1/6main.931028)
id AA21535; Thu, 7 Jul 94 15:37:41 PDT
Received: by work.dsg.tandem.com (4.1/6leaf.931028)
id AA12778; Thu, 7 Jul 94 15:37:39 PDT
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 94 15:37:39 PDT
From: scott@dsg.tandem.com (mueller_scott)
Message-Id: <9407072237.AA12778@work.dsg.tandem.com>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Guest metaphor
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
>The point is: it's your list, so you can make it the way you want.
>But just as with your real-life guests, you will have the reputation of
>being the type of host that you are.
Yah.
But.
If a guest pees in the sink, and then complains because there's no toilet
paper nearby, I think I'm perfectly entitled to tell them to use the toilet,
and NO I WON'T put toilet paper by the sink.
\scott
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 23:21:26 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id XAA20589; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 23:21:26 GMT
Received: from SLUAVA.SLU.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id QAA20582; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 16:21:14 -0700
Received: from SLUVCA.SLU.EDU by SLUVCA.SLU.EDU (PMDF V4.2-13 #5070) id
<01HEFNIEIWPS8WY84V@SLUVCA.SLU.EDU>; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 18:26:40 CST
Date: Thu, 07 Jul 1994 18:26:40 -0600 (CST)
From: Jim Milles
Subject: Re: Discussion Lists: Mail Server Commands
To: LIST-MANAGERS@GREATCIRCLE.COM
Message-id: <01HEFNIEKILE8WY84V@SLUVCA.SLU.EDU>
Organization: SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY St. Louis, MO
X-Envelope-to: LIST-MANAGERS@GREATCIRCLE.COM
X-VMS-To: LIST-MANAGERS@GREATCIRCLE.COM
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Thank you all who offered suggestions on the document I posted
here yesterday. I have revised the document, "Discussion Lists:
Mail Server Commands," to reflect many of your suggestions for
improvement.
Rather than repeat the entire document, here are the relevant
additions:
>1.4. This document also does not deal with discussion lists
>to which one subscribes by sending a message to
>"[listname]-request." There are a great many discussion
>lists of this type; some are distribution lists maintained
>manually by the listowner, while others use some form of
>mailer software ranging from a simple script to a fairly
>sophisticated mailing list program. Some require that
>subscription requests by placed in the message text; others
>require them to be included in the Subject: line. Because
>of the variety of methods of maintaining these lists, it is
>impossible to generalize about their command features.
>However, as a rule, assume that any discussion list with an
>administrative address of "[listname]-request" is maintained
>manually by a human being. Accordingly, you should
>subscribe by sending a friendly message in plain English to
>"[listname]-request." If a program responds with
>instructions for subscribing, follow the instructions.
> Mailserv: SUBSCRIBE [listname] Firstname Lastname
> (e.g., SUBSCRIBE ENVIROLAW John Doe)
> (Optionally, include the e-mail address at
> which you wish to receive list mail:)
> SUBSCRIBE [listname] Firstname Lastname [address]
> Majordomo: SUBSCRIBE [listname]
> (e.g., SUBSCRIBE ELAW-J)
> (Optionally, include the e-mail address at
> which you wish to receive list mail:)
> SUBSCRIBE [listname] Firstname Lastname [address]
> Mailserv: UNSUBSCRIBE [listname]
> (UNSUBSCRIBE [listname] [address]
> if you subscribed under a different e-mail
> address.)
> Majordomo: UNSUBSCRIBE [listname]
> (UNSUBSCRIBE [listname] [address]
> if you subscribed under a different e-mail
> address.)
>(Note: with those programs that support the digest option,
>whether or not to offer the digest format is within the
>discretion of the listowner; consequently not all lists offer
>digests.)
The entire document is available as follows:
E-mail: Send a message containing only the line
GET MAILSER CMD NETTRAIN F=MAIL
to LISTSERV@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu.
FTP: Anonymous ftp to ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu
cd /nettrain
get mailser.cmd
-- or --
anonymous ftp to sluaxa.slu.edu
cd /pub/millesjg
get mailser.cmd
Thanks again for your help.
Jim Milles (listowner, NETTRAIN@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu)
Head of Computer Services
Saint Louis University Law Library
millesjg@sluvca.slu.edu
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 16:27:06 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id WAA19547; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 22:42:17 GMT
Received: from urth.acsu.buffalo.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id PAA19536; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 15:41:59 -0700
Received: from acsu.buffalo.edu (pjg@localhost) by urth (8.6.8/8.6.4) with ESMTP
id SAA06624; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 18:44:36 -0400
Message-Id: <199407072244.SAA06624@urth.acsu.buffalo.edu>
To: Grayson Walker
cc: William LeFebvre ,
Michelle Dick , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: Attitudes, Service, and Mailing Lists
In-reply-to: A message of "Thu, 07 Jul 1994 15:32:08 EDT."
Date: Thu, 07 Jul 1994 18:44:35 -0400
From: Paul Graham
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
it seems you are misplacing responsibility. when i sign-up for a new
service i must be prepared for difficulty. if i am disenchanted i take my
patronage elsewhere. this is sadly the way the entire world works and it
remains incumbent upon the patron to express dismay by spending time elsewhere.
this, of course, presumes there are no contractual obligations on either
party.
-------- You write:
I recognize this as mildly polemic. Your position may have been defensible
in the Arpanet and early Internet days, but not today. Today we have lots
of mailing list members who pay for access to our 'Net. Some of them
-------------------
--
paul
pjg@acsu.buffalo.edu / uunet!acsu.buffalo.edu!pjg / pjg@ubvm
(ripem public key at keyserver ripem.acsu.buffalo.edu)
if the above contains opinions they are mine unless marked otherwise.
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 19:38:56 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id CAA23679; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 02:30:00 GMT
Received: from gw1.att.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id TAA23673; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 19:29:51 -0700
Received: from pegasus.UUCP by ig1.att.att.com id AA07176; Thu, 7 Jul 94 22:32:20 EDT
Message-Id: <9407080232.AA07176@ig1.att.att.com>
Date: 8 Jul 94 02:32:00 GMT
From: psrc@pegasus.att.com (Paul S R Chisholm)
To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: Attitudes, Service, and Mailing Lists
Content-Type: text
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Grayson Walker suggests that some people are
now paying "non-trivial fees . . . for access to our 'Net," and that
these people are customers of the mailing list moderators.
Several mailing list moderators have replied; let me add my voice as
someone from the other side. (As a bystander, not a spokesperson!)
Trivial or non-trivial fees, if someone's paying directly* for network
access, he or she is a customer of the network service provider. Other
customer/supplier relationships might come from that. But that doesn't
make this user a paying customer of every service on the network!
Users are customers of services they pay for. If they sign up for AOL,
they're AOL customers. If they sign up for CIS, they're CIS customers.
If they sign up for PLS, in my humble opinion, they're *our* customers.
We're the ones they go to if they have problems. That's as it should
be. We're the ones who best benefit from a good relationship with our
customers, and with providing a great service.
(Conversely, we're the ones the moderators will go to if a user does a
Bad Thing. That doesn't fit into any customer/supplier relationship
between a commercial service provider and a mailing list moderator.
It's still probably as it should be.)
(*As opposed to someone who pays indirectly for network service. A
university student doesn't usually pay for time on a computer account
(I'm sure there are exceptions). I have the privilege of being able to
work unpaid overtime from the comfort of my own converted laundry room;
who do I turn to?-)
Paul S. R. Chisholm psrc@pegasus.att.com
AT&T Bell Laboratories/ AT&T Mail !psrchisholm
AT&T PersonaLink(sm) Services (PersonaLink is a service mark of AT&T)
I'm not speaking for the company or anyone else, I'm just speaking my mind
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 7 21:58:14 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id EAA01050; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 04:49:10 GMT
Received: from hermes.acs.ryerson.ca by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id VAA01040; Thu, 7 Jul 1994 21:48:57 -0700
Received: by hermes.acs.ryerson.ca (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03)
id AA34873; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 00:50:50 -0400
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 1994 00:50:50 -0400 (EDT)
From: Paul Ribeiro
Subject: Re: Attitudes, Service, and Mailing Lists
To: Grayson Walker
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To:
Message-Id:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
On Thu, 7 Jul 1994, Grayson Walker wrote:
> in the Arpanet and early Internet days, but not today. Today we have lots
> of mailing list members who pay for access to our 'Net. Some of them
so let them bitch to the person they are paying, they can complain that
they /need help/need documentation/blah blah...
/P
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 8 11:51:29 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id LAA05985; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 11:51:29 GMT
Received: from slopoke.mlb.semi.harris.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id EAA05976; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 04:51:21 -0700
Received: from ace.mlb.semi.harris.com by slopoke.mlb.semi.harris.com (4.0/SMI-4.0)
id AA08752; Fri, 8 Jul 94 07:54:21 EDT
Received: from rtfm.UUCP by ace.mlb.semi.harris.com (4.1/SMI-4.1-jmb+uucp)
id AA11591; Fri, 8 Jul 94 07:54:19 EDT
Received: by rtfm.mlb.fl.us (4.1/SMI-4.1)
id AA24908; Fri, 8 Jul 94 07:44:17 EDT
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 1994 07:42:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: Grayson Walker
Subject: Re: Limited Perspective
To: Rich Kulawiec
Cc: Grayson Walker , artemis@rahul.net,
list-managers@greatcircle.com
In-Reply-To: <9407061417.AA27377@gynko.circ.upenn.edu>
Message-Id:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
> The presence of users who cannot manage to learn to use such simple
> conventions as the "-request" address does not indicate a "flawed"
> procedure; it's just a reflection of a difficulty encountered in
> adapating to network culture. Given time and consistent enforcement,
> this difficulty will pass.
Exactly. Given time and creative work, the problems will be solved by
someone else. Thanks for your input.
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 8 11:51:35 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id LAA05990; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 11:51:35 GMT
Received: from slopoke.mlb.semi.harris.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id EAA05978; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 04:51:23 -0700
Received: from ace.mlb.semi.harris.com by slopoke.mlb.semi.harris.com (4.0/SMI-4.0)
id AA08753; Fri, 8 Jul 94 07:54:22 EDT
Received: from rtfm.UUCP by ace.mlb.semi.harris.com (4.1/SMI-4.1-jmb+uucp)
id AA11595; Fri, 8 Jul 94 07:54:21 EDT
Received: by rtfm.mlb.fl.us (4.1/SMI-4.1)
id AA24926; Fri, 8 Jul 94 07:50:48 EDT
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 1994 07:45:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: Grayson Walker
Subject: Re: Attitudes, Service, and Mailing Lists
To: Brent Chapman
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <199407072009.NAA16946@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>
Message-Id:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Brent:
> # Commercial Real Estate list did last weekend. YOU and I may not receive
> # financial compensation, but there are lots of paying customers. Just one
> # more piece of a complex and flawed process. They are customers.
Just because there is no direct financial exchange does not mean they
are not your customer. The fact that you run a list mean you get something
out of the effort -- whatever that may be -- that is your compensation.
You say if you get money, you'll take a service orientation.
You miss the point. The processes are complex and flawed. Just because
you and I cannot solve the problems today (with our limited technology)
does not mean the problems will not be solved in the future. Stick around
long enough and you'll see the money you want.
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 8 05:08:17 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id MAA06194; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 12:04:04 GMT
Received: from slopoke.mlb.semi.harris.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id FAA06184; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 05:03:56 -0700
Received: from ace.mlb.semi.harris.com by slopoke.mlb.semi.harris.com (4.0/SMI-4.0)
id AA09067; Fri, 8 Jul 94 08:07:01 EDT
Received: from rtfm.UUCP by ace.mlb.semi.harris.com (4.1/SMI-4.1-jmb+uucp)
id AA11651; Fri, 8 Jul 94 08:06:55 EDT
Received: by rtfm.mlb.fl.us (4.1/SMI-4.1)
id AA24945; Fri, 8 Jul 94 07:55:12 EDT
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 1994 07:52:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: Grayson Walker
Subject: Re: Attitudes, Service and Mailing Lists
To: Wes Morgan
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <9407072023.AA06433@s.ecc.engr.uky.edu>
Message-Id:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
> In the interest of providing the best service to the largest number
> of "customers," I may require *all* customers to follow a certain
> procedure. I see little fault with this, in *any* business environ-
> ment; why should we avoid it here?
Wes:
What is the name of your company? How long have you been in
business? How many customers do you have? What was your gross FY1993?
How many employees do you have?
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 8 12:09:54 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id MAA06298; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 12:09:54 GMT
Received: from noc4.dccs.upenn.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id FAA06292; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 05:09:46 -0700
Received: from GYNKO.CIRC.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu
id AA00755; Fri, 8 Jul 94 08:12:50 -0400
Received: by gynko.circ.upenn.edu
id AA02856; Thu, 7 Jul 94 07:54:00 EDT
From: rsk@gynko.circ.upenn.edu (Rich Kulawiec)
Posted-Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 07:53:59 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <9407071154.AA02856@gynko.circ.upenn.edu>
Subject: Re: Limited Perspective
To: gwalker@rtfm.mlb.fl.us (Grayson Walker)
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 07:53:59 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: gwalker@rtfm.mlb.fl.us, artemis@rahul.net, list-managers@greatcircle.com
In-Reply-To: from "Grayson Walker" at Jul 8, 94 07:42:14 am
Organization: Ditka Policy Institute
X-Last-River: New River Gorge
X-Last-Cd: Bluesiana Triangle
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21]
Content-Type: text
Content-Length: 1432
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
>> The presence of users who cannot manage to learn to use such simple
>> conventions as the "-request" address does not indicate a "flawed"
>> procedure; it's just a reflection of a difficulty encountered in
>> adapating to network culture. Given time and consistent enforcement,
>> this difficulty will pass.
>
>Exactly. Given time and creative work, the problems will be solved by
>someone else. Thanks for your input.
I'm trying to resist the temptation to barbecue you for distorting what
I had to say; instead, I'll attempt to gently explain it to you:
I happen to think that the "-request" convention is a simple, easy-to-use,
easy-to-remember mechanism for handling out-of-band mailing list traffic.
However, it's one of *many* conventions that newbies have to learn in
order to function in network society, and it's entirely possible that
ome of them will miss it, or get it wrong, or forget it. This does
not make it a "flawed" procedure or even a *bad* procedure; this just
makes it a procedure that some folks didn't catch on the first (second,
third...) try. Rather than spend time searching for another convention,
or expend a lot of effort trying to use technology to solve what is
essentially a people problem, my position is that consistent use
by everyone involved (i.e. mailing list moderators, such as you and me)
will slowly educate the relevant population and the problem will
gradually diminish.
---Rsk
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 8 05:12:50 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id MAA06207; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 12:04:18 GMT
Received: from slopoke.mlb.semi.harris.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id FAA06187; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 05:03:58 -0700
Received: from ace.mlb.semi.harris.com by slopoke.mlb.semi.harris.com (4.0/SMI-4.0)
id AA09069; Fri, 8 Jul 94 08:07:02 EDT
Received: from rtfm.UUCP by ace.mlb.semi.harris.com (4.1/SMI-4.1-jmb+uucp)
id AA11655; Fri, 8 Jul 94 08:07:00 EDT
Received: by rtfm.mlb.fl.us (4.1/SMI-4.1)
id AA24954; Fri, 8 Jul 94 07:58:24 EDT
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 1994 07:55:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: Grayson Walker
Subject: Re: Attitudes, Service, and Mailing Lists
To: Jared_Rhine@hmc.edu
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <199407072049.NAA10230@osiris.ac.hmc.edu>
Message-Id:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
> Certainly not. One cannot establish a customer-service relationship without
> the consent of both parties. The list-manager in question has not agreed
> (either formally, or informally) to any such relationship, thus no
> corresponding responsibilites of such an arrangement apply.
Nonsense. If you offer the list to the public and accept subscription
requests, you have agreed to offer and provide the service. If you would
treat your customer differently if you received more or different
compensation, that is an entirely different issue.
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 8 12:30:22 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id MAA06585; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 12:30:22 GMT
Received: from z.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id FAA06575; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 05:30:11 -0700
Received: from localhost (mmorse@localhost) by z.nsf.gov (8.6.4/8.6.4) id IAA00777; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 08:33:48 -0400
Message-Id: <199407081233.IAA00777@z.nsf.gov>
From: mmorse@nsf.gov (Michael H. Morse)
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 1994 08:33:48 EDT
In-Reply-To: rsk@gynko.circ.upenn.edu (Rich Kulawiec)
"Re: Limited Perspective" (Jul 7, 7:53am)
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90)
To: rsk@gynko.circ.upenn.edu (Rich Kulawiec),
gwalker@rtfm.mlb.fl.us (Grayson Walker)
Subject: Re: Limited Perspective
Cc: artemis@rahul.net, list-managers@greatcircle.com
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
> Rather than spend time searching for another convention,
> or expend a lot of effort trying to use technology to solve what is
> essentially a people problem, my position is that consistent use
> by everyone involved (i.e. mailing list moderators, such as you and me)
> will slowly educate the relevant population and the problem will
> gradually diminish.
Anyway, I think you have it completely backwards. Successful companies
are those that use technology to solve people problems. Compared to
software and procedures, people are devilishly difficult to change.
What's really most likely to happen is that Microsoft will come in with
cool, bullet-proof, user-friendly software to do mailing lists and blow
away this whole egotistic inconsistent mess we live with now.
You cannot "educate" a population that is rapidly growing, that is
rapidly becoming less computer literate, in a complex task that they do
not do often enough to master. Your problem is certain to grow, not
diminish.
--Mike
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 8 12:40:29 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id MAA06740; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 12:40:29 GMT
Received: from d.ecc.engr.uky.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id FAA06732; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 05:40:20 -0700
Received: from s.ecc.engr.uky.edu by d.ecc.engr.uky.edu (5.59/25-eef)
id AA05903; Fri, 8 Jul 94 08:35:00 EDT
Received: by s.ecc.engr.uky.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1)
id AA00728; Fri, 8 Jul 94 08:38:06 EDT
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 94 08:38:06 EDT
From: morgan@engr.uky.edu (Wes Morgan)
Message-Id: <9407081238.AA00728@s.ecc.engr.uky.edu>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: Attitudes, Service and Mailing Lists
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
>From: Grayson Walker
>
>> In the interest of providing the best service to the largest number
>> of "customers," I may require *all* customers to follow a certain
>> procedure. I see little fault with this, in *any* business environ-
>> ment; why should we avoid it here?
>
>Wes:
>
>What is the name of your company? How long have you been in
>business? How many customers do you have? What was your gross FY1993?
>How many employees do you have?
I am not a company - that's the whole point!
Analogies are flying around which compare listowners to businesses,
providing services to customers. I merely used another analogy; if
my intent was unclear, I apologize.
Let me try again, in the absence of analogy:
As a systems administrator, I support 2100+ users. In the interest
of providing the best service to the largest number of them, I may
require that *all* users follow certain procedures.
I suspect that few of us would have significant heartburn with that
statement. Now, let's try this one:
As a listowner, I support 80 subscribers. In the interest of
providing the best service to the largest number of them, I may
require that *all* subscribers follow certain procedures.
If the former statement is valid, why shouldn't the latter be valid as well?
--Wes
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 8 13:20:29 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id NAA07320; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 13:20:29 GMT
Received: from d.ecc.engr.uky.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id GAA07314; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 06:20:21 -0700
Received: from s.ecc.engr.uky.edu by d.ecc.engr.uky.edu (5.59/25-eef)
id AA06128; Fri, 8 Jul 94 09:11:58 EDT
Received: by s.ecc.engr.uky.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1)
id AA01151; Fri, 8 Jul 94 09:15:05 EDT
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 94 09:15:05 EDT
From: morgan@engr.uky.edu (Wes Morgan)
Message-Id: <9407081315.AA01151@s.ecc.engr.uky.edu>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: Attitudes, Service, and Mailing Lists
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
>From: Grayson Walker
>> Certainly not. One cannot establish a customer-service relationship without
>> the consent of both parties. The list-manager in question has not agreed
>> (either formally, or informally) to any such relationship, thus no
>> corresponding responsibilites of such an arrangement apply.
>
>Nonsense. If you offer the list to the public and accept subscription
>requests, you have agreed to offer and provide the service.
Indeed - on my terms. Not yours, not the client's - mine.
That, in the absence of illegal activity on my part, should
effectively end this particular thread.
--Wes
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 8 17:37:23 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id RAA11275; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 17:37:23 GMT
Received: from slopoke.mlb.semi.harris.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id FAA06188; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 05:03:59 -0700
Received: from ace.mlb.semi.harris.com by slopoke.mlb.semi.harris.com (4.0/SMI-4.0)
id AA09073; Fri, 8 Jul 94 08:07:03 EDT
Received: from rtfm.UUCP by ace.mlb.semi.harris.com (4.1/SMI-4.1-jmb+uucp)
id AA11659; Fri, 8 Jul 94 08:07:01 EDT
Received: by rtfm.mlb.fl.us (4.1/SMI-4.1)
id AA24977; Fri, 8 Jul 94 08:03:19 EDT
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 1994 08:00:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: Grayson Walker
Subject: Re: How to handle threats from disgruntled members
To: "s.merchant"
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <9407072141.AA07581@ig1.att.att.com>
Message-Id:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
> >The problem is that most people unsubscribe from lists very rarely in
> >their lives. Also, they are not really all that interested in
> >learning computer geek stuff. As a result, no amount of insults will
> >teach them.
>
> That pretty much sums it up. I have a standard message that's firm
> but not insulting (I don't think) but makes it quite clear that they
> have to resend the request. Based on my experiences, I would recommend
> the following:
>
> 1. Do not ignore the request as it will generate repeat requests. At
> this point, you should be considering the other members of the list
good discussion deleted for brevity.
> 5. Despite all this, you will STILL get messages sent to the whole list.
> You have to accept that that's part of what you signed up for when you
> decided to be the list owner. The best you can do is to keep the
> number small.
This is exactly right. "You will STILL get messages sent to the whole list."
Only when we have better processes and systems will this cease to be
a problem.
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 8 18:10:38 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id SAA11829; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 18:10:38 GMT
Received: from gatekeeper.ray.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id LAA11821; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 11:10:15 -0700
Received: from localhost (mailer@localhost) by gatekeeper.ray.com (8.6.4/8.6.5) id OAA11477 for ; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 14:10:45 -0400
Received: from rayssd.ssd.ray.com by gatekeeper.ray.com; Fri Jul 8 14:12:28 1994
Received: from fluke.ssd.ray.com (fluke.ssd.ray.com [138.125.192.34]) by rayssd.ssd.ray.com (8.6.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id OAA12668 for ; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 14:10:41 -0400
Received: from localhost (dhb@localhost) by fluke.ssd.ray.com (8.6.4/8.6.4) id OAA04862 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 14:11:11 -0400
Message-Id: <199407081811.OAA04862@fluke.ssd.ray.com>
From: dhb@ssd.ray.com (David H. Brierley)
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 1994 14:11:11 -0400
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92)
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: Attitudes, Service, and Mailing Lists
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
On Jul 7, 15:32, Grayson Walker wrote:
>
> I recognize this as mildly polemic. Your position may have been defensible
> in the Arpanet and early Internet days, but not today. Today we have lots
> of mailing list members who pay for access to our 'Net. Some of them
> pay non-trivial fees -- I've seen some who pay on a per message basis --
> they get excited when a list upchucks hundreds of null messages -- as the
If people are paying someone for access then they should be able to get help
with problems like this from the person/company they are paying the money to.
I run a small site out of my house and I charge for access to that system. I
fully expect that if a user of my system has a problem that they will call me
about it and I make sure that all the users of my system are aware of this.
If a service provider is not providing this type of support then why are you
paying them money? If I have a problem with something that I purchased, my
first action should be to call the place that I purchased it from, not to call
the manufacturer. If you think of mailing list maintainers as manufacturers
and service providers as stores then I think the support issue becomes a
little clearer.
--
David H. Brierley; Raytheon Company, Submarine Signal Directorate
Work: dhb@ssd.ray.com Home: dave@galaxia.network23.com
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 8 12:09:29 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id SAA12512; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 18:57:00 GMT
Received: from mailhost.phantom.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id LAA12505; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 11:56:51 -0700
Received: from mindvox (mindvox.phantom.com) by mailhost.phantom.com (4.1/SMI-4.1)
id AA07386; Fri, 8 Jul 94 15:21:10 EDT
Received: by mindvox (4.1/SMI-4.1)
id AA00850; Fri, 8 Jul 94 14:59:29 EDT
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 1994 14:59:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: Cabinet Cat
Subject: How to use Digestify?
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Message-Id:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Hi all...I just took over the Generation X list, and it's VERY
high-volume, to put it mildly. I'm in desperate need of a digest
version, but my site doesn't offer automatic digests. So I found out
about this short program called digestify. I ftp'ed it, but
unfortunately I'm pretty unix-illiterate, and am not totally sure what to
do now. Can anyone here provide me with a short crash-couse-post in
running this program? Millions of Xers (well, 150 or so) need your help!
Thanks,
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 8 20:09:44 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id UAA13814; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 20:09:44 GMT
Received: from hamp.hampshire.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id NAA13805; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 13:09:22 -0700
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 1994 13:09:22 -0700
From: mmurrain@hamp.hampshire.edu
Received: from [192.33.12.182] (mac182.hampshire.edu) by hamp.hampshire.edu;
Fri, 8 Jul 94 16:10 EDT
Subject: Re: Attitudes, Service and Mailing Lists
To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
Message-id:
X-Envelope-to: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
I want to add my voice to those who say that users of lists are
*not* our "customers". I manage 3 lists, two of which I started because
there wasn't a place for the things *I* wanted to see and needed for my
work. The other I took over for mostly altruistic reasons. So, in a sense,
I created the (two) lists for essentially selfish reasons, although many
have benefitted by them. They also primarily cater to academics, which
might put them in a slightly different category. The third list, however,
is different, and I can really tell. I figure that my service to the lists
more than makes up for what I receive in return. But I'm not around to
cater to folks who can't get their netiquette straight, or what address the
listserv is at after I've told them 20 times. I tend to be a fairly gentle
listowner, giving reminders now and again, and if people ignore them, it's
easier to remove them from the list than deal with multiple "unsubscribes."
It really is a thankless task, and I've gotten used to that, but
I'm not going to be anyone's net.servant.
Problem is, as the net grows and the number of newbies continually
outstrip the number of experienced users, we will have to get used to
annoyances, and sometimes assholes. Besides, the ones who play by the rules
seem silent to us, only the ones who don't muck up the works.
Michelle
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Michelle Murrain, Ph.D. _____________________________
School of Natural Science | mmurrain@hamp.hampshire.edu |
Hampshire College, -----------------------------
Amherst, MA 01002
(413) 582-5688 fax:(413) 582-5448
Listowner: Feminists in Science and Technology (FIST@dawn.hampshire.edu)
Minority Health Issues (MINHLTH@dawn.hampshire.edu)
List Facilitator:Sistah-net (Sistah-request@hamp.hampshire.edu)
Co-moderator, sci.med.aids
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 8 21:53:31 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id VAA14910; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 21:53:31 GMT
Received: from UUCP-GW.CC.UH.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id OAA14904; Fri, 8 Jul 1994 14:53:20 -0700
Received: from Taronga.COM by UUCP-GW.CC.UH.EDU with UUCP id AA14714
(5.67a/IDA-1.5 for greatcircle.com!list-managers); Fri, 8 Jul 1994 16:38:27 -0500
Received: by taronga.taronga.com (smail2.5)
id AA13791; 8 Jul 94 16:28:26 CDT (Fri)
Subject: Re: Attitudes, Service, and Mailing Lists
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 94 16:28:23 CDT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.2 PL16]
Message-Id: <9407081628.AA13791@taronga.taronga.com>
From: arielle@taronga.com (Stephanie da Silva)
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
David H. Brierley wrote:
> If people are paying someone for access then they should be able to get help
> with problems like this from the person/company they are paying the money to.
> I run a small site out of my house and I charge for access to that system. I
> fully expect that if a user of my system has a problem that they will call me
> about it and I make sure that all the users of my system are aware of this.
I can take this in a completely different direction.
Both my lists have fairly controlled environments, and I don't allow exploders
on them. One of the lists can get high volume and at times, people will send
gifs and other large files through, so I set up a separate parallel list to
handle the larger files. This is so if someone doesn't want/can't deal with
large files, they don't have to receive them. Of the 120 on the list, about
95 are on this list (called maniacs). All this is clearly explained in the
intro file I send out, which also gives the cap on the size of files I'll
accept.
Twice now I've received indignant letters from sysops of small systems who
paid for their feeds, complaining of the large files I've been sending to a
user of theirs subscribed to my list. Easily taken care of, I dropped the
user in question off maniacs. Their attitudes were pretty much, "How dare
you, don't you know you're not supposed to do this? etc, etc." The second
one kept going on about his users who read the list even tho there was only
one person from his system subscribed. I explained about maniacs to him and
he replied that how could he know about it since I never told him (Him? He
wasn't the one subscribed!) so I sent him the list rules to show him how it
was all there in the file I sent to all new subscribers. Upon further
exchange, I ascertained that out he had set up an exploder. By this time,
I was so annoyed, I dropped his site off the list entirely.
He wasn't very happy with this decision of mine, accusing me of discriminating
against smaller systems. I told him I didn't appreciate how he had messed
with my list without consulting with me (at no time during this discussion
did I talk with the person who was actually subscribed!). But I guess what
bothered me the most was his attitude towards my list. The reason he wanted
it was so he could use it as a service for his paying users (I guess he
couldn't afford much of a newsfeed). It's a pity I didn't get a chance to
talk to the users who were actually reading to see what they thought. Too
much lack of communicaton all around.
--
Stephanie da Silva PO Box 720711
arielle@taronga.com Houston, TX 77272
Moderator, rec.food.recipes 713 568 0381
From list-managers-owner Sat Jul 9 21:52:10 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id VAA24992; Sat, 9 Jul 1994 21:52:10 GMT
Received: from UUCP-GW.CC.UH.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id OAA24986; Sat, 9 Jul 1994 14:51:58 -0700
Received: from Taronga.COM by UUCP-GW.CC.UH.EDU with UUCP id AA22451
(5.67a/IDA-1.5 for greatcircle.com!list-managers); Sat, 9 Jul 1994 16:47:46 -0500
Received: by taronga.taronga.com (smail2.5)
id AA01455; 9 Jul 94 16:36:26 CDT (Sat)
Subject: why no exploders?
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 94 16:36:25 CDT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.2 PL16]
Message-Id: <9407091636.AA01455@taronga.taronga.com>
From: arielle@taronga.com (Stephanie da Silva)
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
psrc@pegasus.att.com (Paul S R Chisholm) asks:
> Why? > Could you please say what
> your bad experience with exploders has been, or why not dealing with
> exploders has been better?
>
> I'm asking from the point of view of a large service provider with
> experienced users.
It has nothing to do with the technical aspects. It has everything to
do with the nature of the list.
You see, the list is a forum for Disney television animation and we have
a couple of people who work at the Disney studios as members of the list.
One of them freely dumps all sorts of inside information on us. He's also
sent episode scripts. This is with the understanding that it's for our
use only, and not to be spread with wild abandon about the net.
I realize that it's not possible to educate all the users, but I try (I
have a reputation of being a bit of a hardnose, but there's zero noise on
the list). I have to have faith in the membership and hope they've read
the guidelines, and it seems to have worked out so far. We've had a couple
glitches in the past, a case of one user thinking all information on the
net is like free love (for the taking and giving -- he's still like this,
btw, and we still have arguments over various things) and he took some
scripts and set them up for anonymous ftp (and took them right down again
:-). So now we put lots of obvious notices (Do not post to the net, do
not redistribute, etc, etc) on anything copyrighted that goes to the list.
I understand Disney is the same way -- they don't really like stuff like
this getting out into the public domain, so I think we're pretty lucky and
don't want to abuse it.
At one point I did have some exploders but I found they caused some
confusion on the other end as the readers had no way of telling that
the newsgroup they were reading was really a gated mailing list, so I
removed them. (Usually when talking with said confused person, upon
finding out it was a mailing list they lost interest, so it was just as
well).
My other mailing list is one of a sexual nature and people sometimes get
paranoid about who might be reading what they're writing, but it's also
very low volume so I don't worry about that one.
--
Stephanie da Silva PO Box 720711
arielle@taronga.com Houston, TX 77272
Moderator, rec.food.recipes 713 568 0381
From list-managers-owner Sat Jul 9 22:21:59 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id WAA25377; Sat, 9 Jul 1994 22:21:59 GMT
Received: from cs.umb.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id PAA25371; Sat, 9 Jul 1994 15:21:51 -0700
Received: from terminus.cs.umb.edu by cs.umb.edu with SMTP id AA09315
(5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Sat, 9 Jul 1994 18:24:59 -0400
Message-Id: <199407092224.AA09315@cs.umb.edu>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: why no exploders?
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 09 Jul 1994 16:36:25 CDT."
<9407091636.AA01455@taronga.taronga.com>
Date: Sat, 09 Jul 1994 18:24:58 -0400
From: "John P. Rouillard"
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
In message <9407091636.AA01455@taronga.taronga.com>, Stephanie da
Silva writes:
>psrc@pegasus.att.com (Paul S R Chisholm) asks:
>
>> Why? > Could you please say what
>> your bad experience with exploders has been, or why not dealing with
>> exploders has been better?
>>
>> I'm asking from the point of view of a large service provider with
>> experienced users.
>
>It has nothing to do with the technical aspects. It has everything to
>do with the nature of the list.
> [...]
>At one point I did have some exploders but I found they caused some
>confusion on the other end as the readers had no way of telling that
>the newsgroup they were reading was really a gated mailing list, so I
>removed them. (Usually when talking with said confused person, upon
>finding out it was a mailing list they lost interest, so it was just as
>well).
Actually Stephanie put her finger on a couple of problems that I have
with exploders. Unlike her general statement, it is partly a technical
problem. Setting up an exploder requires that the site do something
besides add:
list-exploder::include:/spool/mailing-list/list
to their aliases file. They also need to take steps to make sure that
bounces from their exploder do not make it back to the list
operator. Most people who set up exploders don't segment their
exploders this way, so I have to try to figure out why I am getting a
bounce for the address jim@bozo.xxx.com when jim@bozo.xxx.com isn't on
my list. Usually I analyze the reciebed lines, and see if there is an
exploded list somewhere along the way. If so, I try to get ahold of
the postmaser and work things out. If the poostmaster is
non-responsive after a week, the exploder gets dropped, and a standard
form letter explaining why the exploder was dropped and the
requirements for properly setting up an exploder is sent to the
exploder address.
The second problem is a people problem that Stephanie metions int he
second paragraph above. Some people who are subscribed via exploders
don't know how they are subscribed, and keep sending messages to the
list administrative (or worse the list address) to try to get off the
list. Of course I can't do anything about it, I have given up on
trying to explain how they are actually getting the list mail. The
concept of exploders is just too much for them to grasp. I just tell
them to talk to their local sysadmin (as well as cc'ing the exploder
owner and post,aster addrresses).
I won't discuss the people who try to unsubscribe from a local
newgroup using the list admin address rather than changing their
.newsrc 8-).
-- John
John Rouillard
Senior Systems Consultant (SERL Project) University of Massachusetts at Boston
rouilj@cs.umb.edu (preferred) Boston, MA, (617) 287-6480
==============================================================================
My employers don't acknowledge my existence much less my opinions.
From list-managers-owner Sun Jul 10 02:40:07 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id CAA26919; Sun, 10 Jul 1994 02:40:07 GMT
Received: from gw1.att.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id TAA26898; Sat, 9 Jul 1994 19:39:52 -0700
Received: from anuxv.UUCP by ig1.att.att.com id AA07482; Sat, 9 Jul 94 22:42:30 EDT
Message-Id: <9407100242.AA07482@ig1.att.att.com>
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
From: merchant@anuxv.att.com (s.merchant)
Original-To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Date: 9 Jul 1994 22:38 EDT
Subject: Re: Attitudes, Service, and Mailing Lists
In-Reply-To: <9407081628.AA13791@taronga.taronga.com>
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
And there are those who really do try to follow the procedures, but
must have missed something in the "translation." :-).
[Names are masked to protect the well-intentioned.]
================================================================
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 1994 18:29:21 -0700
From: cxxxxxx@netcom.com (Xxxxx Xxxxxxx)
Message-Id: <199407090129.SAA05416@netcom6.netcom.com>
To: ballroom@MIT.EDU
ballroom-request@athena.mit.edu
================================================================
From list-managers-owner Sun Jul 10 03:55:15 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id DAA27171; Sun, 10 Jul 1994 03:55:15 GMT
Received: from comtch.iea.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id UAA27162; Sat, 9 Jul 1994 20:55:05 -0700
Received: by comtch.iea.com (Smail3.1.28.1 #6)
id m0qMq1N-0003Z2C; Sat, 9 Jul 94 20:57 PDT
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
From: dmcevers@comtch.iea.com (Dan McEvers)
Subject: List help
Date: Sat, 09 Jul 1994 19:34:33 -0400
Message-ID: <9Gp7ka9tNI2C068yn@comtch.iea.com>
Lines: 14
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
I am becoming aware of software to initiate and maintain a mailing
list, but what I have been trying to find is program to expedite
messages and commands to be sent to various lists in their proper
format per individual list.
Here is a scenario. I am trying to learn as much as I can in a limited
amount of time about as many of the lists as I am interested in. I need
to subscribe and unsubscribe to quite a few in order to pare my incoming
mail to a manageable but efficient level. I want to keep all the list
managers happy but forget some of the proper commands and addresses.
Is there anything available that could be made aware of proper formatting
and addressing before sending?
From: dmcevers@comtch.iea.com ==> Dan McEvers in Spokane, WA.
From list-managers-owner Sun Jul 10 12:31:46 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id MAA00949; Sun, 10 Jul 1994 12:31:46 GMT
Received: from post.demon.co.uk by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id FAA00943; Sun, 10 Jul 1994 05:31:35 -0700
Received: from stonewall.demon.co.uk by post.demon.co.uk id aa11402;
10 Jul 94 13:18 GMT-60:00
From: Nigel Whitfield
Date: Sun, 10 Jul 1994 12:00:00 BST
In-Reply-To: List-Managers-Digest-Owner@greatcircle.com's message 'List Managers Digest V3 #119' of Thu 7 Jul
Reply-To: Nigel Whitfield
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92)
To: List-Managers@greatcircle.com, List-Managers-Digest@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: Attitudes, Service, and Mailing Lists
Message-ID: <9407101200.aa22760@fags.stonewall.demon.co.uk>
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
> From: Grayson Walker
> Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 15:32:08 -0400 (EDT)
>
> I recognize this as mildly polemic. Your position may have been defensible
> in the Arpanet and early Internet days, but not today. Today we have lots
> of mailing list members who pay for access to our 'Net. Some of them
> pay non-trivial fees
And guess what? Some of the list maintainers spend a lot of money to
access the net to run things.
> We're also talking about an orientation towards service, and, yes plain
> courtesy. I know you've seen the (fortunately) occasional arrogance that
> some self-styled experts dump upon the neophyte. This must end.
I've seen the arrogance of people from nicely connected sites who
assume that I must reply to their messages within a few hours, and
complain vociferously if I won't run up my own phone bill to sort out
their problems. Perhaps that ought to end too.
> > This "customer" expectation you have described is only valid if these
> > folks were indeed paying a list maintainer for the service. Then they
>
> I disagree. If they paying somebody for a service you provide without
> compensation, I think you're undervaluing your service. Regardless of the
> prices, there is a service-customer relationship here.
Nice bit of psychobabble there. I value the service I provide very
highly, and I'm sure many other people here feel the same about their
lists. I've seen nothing in this thread that makes me feel I have some
extra duty to list members because they're paying someone else for net
access.
If there's any duty to the subscribers of a list, it's solely a duty
of goodwill, much as with any voluntary organisation. I already spend
far more time administering the list than people will downloading it,
and while I do my best to make life easy for the poor souls who pay
for access, there's a limit, and that's very much determined by what I
pay, out of my own pocket, to handle administration.
It would be great to provide people with instant, polite responses to
even the most ludicrous requests, or to manage everything so that no
one receives too many costly messages, but it's not possible outside a
completely commercial environment, and no matter how much people pay
to their service providers, it makes not one jot of difference to the
communications bills that I receive.
Nigel.
--
[Nigel Whitfield nigel@stonewall.demon.co.uk]
[For details on the uk-motss mailing list mail uk-motss-request@dircon.co.uk]
[****** All demon.co.uk sites are independently run internet hosts ******]
From list-managers-owner Mon Jul 11 16:55:14 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id QAA07317; Mon, 11 Jul 1994 16:55:14 GMT
Received: from midway.uchicago.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id JAA07295; Mon, 11 Jul 1994 09:54:43 -0700
From: ckoenig@midway.uchicago.edu
Received: from kimbark.uchicago.edu by midway.uchicago.edu for List-Managers@greatcircle.com Mon, 11 Jul 94 11:57:47 CDT
Received: from localhost.uchicago.edu by kimbark.uchicago.edu (4.1/UCCO-1.0A)
id AA16353; Mon, 11 Jul 94 11:57:07 CDT
Message-Id: <9407111657.AA16353@kimbark.uchicago.edu>
To: List-Managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: List Owners vs. System Administrators
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 11 Jul 94 01:10:05 PDT."
<199407110810.BAA01534@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 94 11:57:07 -0500
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Another angle, which might help to clarify the discussion, of list
owner responsibilities towards list subscribers:
Consider the system administrator of the overal list server system
(whether Majordomo, ListProc, or LISTSERV), who has to keep the whole
shebang running and handle occasional errors and irate complaints
(when they bounce to Postmaster).
The system administrator has the individual list owners, for each list
hosted on the system, as "customers". Then, in turn, the list owner
for each list has the list subscribers as further "customers" in the
manner being debated now. But I don't see the first relationship being
discussed as much, i.e. what the list owner owes to the system
administrators....
By starting a mailing list on someone's system, you may introduce
significant new mail traffic load, error bounces, irate complaints,
attract hackers' attention to the host, etc. etc.
At the U. of Chicago we're getting ready to introduce a new Majordomo
list service host, and we're working on our support policies and
documentation etc. for the new list owners.
As the overall system administrators, we definitely do NOT want to
hear from your subscribers, on your individual mailing list..... part
of your responsibility as a list owner is to keep them out of our
hair! We get lots of requests, "I want to start a mailing list for
XX", "I want to take over this national mailing list YY", etc. so
we're finally almost ready to take them on in a supported, systematic
way.
Part of our problem right now is to figure out what to do when lots of
professors, TA's, etc. want to establish mailing lists for each
section of the courses they teach, but don't have time to do proper
mailing list owner administration (in our limited tests, professors
add student addresses by hand, often incorrectly, and then simply
won't fix them, causing errors on every single message sent to the
list) ..... how far do we go in providing assistance, etc.
I think we are also going to restrict the kind of mailing lists
offered, at least initially, to only on-campus lists, focused on
research and instruction at the University. So no one will be hosting
international interest lists on our server, not at first. This
decision may cut down on the problems we encounter, we'll see. At
least, I think that's the plan.
Chris Koenigsberg: ckk@uchicago.edu, ckoenig@midway.uchicago.edu
U. of Chicago Academic Information Technologies
From list-managers-owner Mon Jul 11 17:14:08 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id RAA07833; Mon, 11 Jul 1994 17:14:08 GMT
Received: from hawkwind.utcs.utoronto.ca by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id KAA07824; Mon, 11 Jul 1994 10:13:58 -0700
Received: from localhost by hawkwind.utcs.utoronto.ca with SMTP id <24044>; Mon, 11 Jul 1994 13:16:58 -0400
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: Limited Perspective
In-reply-to: mmorse's message of Fri, 08 Jul 1994 08:33:48 -0400.
<199407081233.IAA00777@z.nsf.gov>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 1994 13:16:50 -0400
From: Chris Siebenmann
Message-Id: <94Jul11.131658edt.24044@hawkwind.utcs.utoronto.ca>
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
| What's really most likely to happen is that Microsoft will come in with
| cool, bullet-proof, user-friendly software to do mailing lists and blow
| away this whole egotistic inconsistent mess we live with now.
Sounds good to me. When it does what I want easier than my current
method, I'll use it.
I don't run my mailing lists the way I do out of some attachment to
the method; I do it because it's the easiest way.
- cks
From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 12 12:59:15 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id MAA24181; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 12:59:15 GMT
Received: from ruby.ora.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id FAA24172; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 05:59:02 -0700
Received: from rubble.west.ora.com (rubble.west.ora.com [198.112.209.17]) by ruby.ora.com (8.6.8/8.6.4) with SMTP id JAA13423 for ; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 09:02:08 -0400
Received: by rubble.west.ora.com (4.1/SMI-4.1+JP-2.5)
id AA00770; Tue, 12 Jul 94 06:01:24 PDT
From: Jerry Peek
Reply-To: jerry@ora.com
X-Mailer: MH 6.8.3
To: ckoenig@midway.uchicago.edu
Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: List Owners vs. System Administrators
In-Reply-To: Message from ckoenig@midway.uchicago.edu
of "Mon, 11 Jul 1994 11:57:07 -0500." <9407111657.AA16353@kimbark.uchicago.edu>
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 1994 06:01:23 -0700
Message-Id: <769.774018083@rubble.west.ora.com>
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
> Part of our problem right now is to figure out what to do when lots of
> professors, TA's, etc. want to establish mailing lists for each
> section of the courses they teach, but don't have time to do proper
> mailing list owner administration (in our limited tests, professors
> add student addresses by hand, often incorrectly, and then simply
> won't fix them, causing errors on every single message sent to the
> list) ..... how far do we go in providing assistance, etc.
Maybe you could hack up the bounce-handling code from Alan Millar and
Brent Chapman (it was posted to majordomo lists a week or two ago).
Make it your policy that all bounces will be routed to the owner's
mailbox. For the bounces that the bounce program doesn't handle and
that end up in your mailbox, use a re-distributing program (like "dist"
in MH) to send the bounces on. Then the owners can deal with the
consequences of their actions: if they screw up a lot, they'll get
lots of bounces and they'll learn.
BTW, I'm not sure about the status of the bounce-handling stuff. It was
only for Majordomo. It wasn't ready for prime time, I think.
--
Jerry Peek; O'Reilly & Associates; Sebastopol, CA 95472 USA; jerry@ora.com
Info: gopher gopher.ora.com (or telnet, and login: gopher), or info@ora.com
Orders: (800)998-9938, +1 707-829-0515, fax +1 707-829-0104, or order@ora.com
From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 12 15:08:22 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id PAA25631; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 15:08:22 GMT
Received: from de5.CTD.ORNL.GOV by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id IAA25625; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 08:08:13 -0700
Received: (from de5@localhost) by de5.CTD.ORNL.GOV (8.6.9/8.6.9) id LAA24731; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 11:11:24 -0400
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 1994 11:11:24 -0400
From: Dave Sill
Message-Id: <199407121511.LAA24731@de5.CTD.ORNL.GOV>
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: How to handle threats from disgruntled members
In-Reply-To:
References: <9407072141.AA07581@ig1.att.att.com>
X-Mailer: VM Version 5.70.L (beta) with GNU Emacs 19.10 Lucid of Wed May 25 1994 on tile.cs.colorado.edu (berkeley-unix)
Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab, Oak Ridge, Tenn., USA
X-Disclaimer: My opinions do not necessarily represent those of my employer
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
>This is exactly right. "You will STILL get messages sent to the whole list."
>Only when we have better processes and systems will this cease to be
>a problem.
It's fairly easy to filter out 95% of the administrivia requests sent
to a list. Majordomo supports this, as does various homegrown list
software.
I don't see what the big deal is.
--
Dave Sill (de5@ornl.gov)
Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Workstation Support
URL http://www.dec.com/pub/DEC/DECinfo/html/dsill.html
From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 12 16:59:33 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id QAA27656; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 16:59:33 GMT
Received: from suntan.Tandem.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id JAA27650; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 09:59:23 -0700
Received: from devserver.dsg.tandem.com by suntan.Tandem.com (4.1/suntan5.940222) for list-managers@greatcircle.com
id AA16873; Tue, 12 Jul 94 10:02:08 PDT
Received: from work.dsg.tandem.com by devserver.dsg.tandem.com (4.1/6main.931028)
id AA14500; Tue, 12 Jul 94 10:02:06 PDT
Received: by work.dsg.tandem.com (4.1/6leaf.931028)
id AA27658; Tue, 12 Jul 94 10:02:04 PDT
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 94 10:02:04 PDT
From: scott@dsg.tandem.com (mueller_scott)
Message-Id: <9407121702.AA27658@work.dsg.tandem.com>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: How to handle threats from disgruntled members
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
>It's fairly easy to filter out 95% of the administrivia requests sent to a
>list. Majordomo supports this, as does various homegrown list software.
It occurred to me recently that this may even have helped cause the problem
that lead to this thread. I don't remember any more what the Majordomo code
does with sub/unsub requests sent to the this, but if it was dropping them
silently, then no-one could possibly have seen the requests, which would
certainly tend to send some people into the stratosphere...
\scott
From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 12 17:19:45 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id RAA27945; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 17:19:45 GMT
Received: from mycroft.GreatCircle.COM by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id KAA27938; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 10:19:40 -0700
Message-Id: <199407121719.KAA27938@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>
To: scott@dsg.tandem.com (mueller_scott)
cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: How to handle threats from disgruntled members
In-reply-to: Your message of Tue, 12 Jul 94 10:02:04 PDT
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 1994 10:19:38 -0700
From: Brent Chapman
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
scott@dsg.tandem.com (mueller_scott) writes:
# >It's fairly easy to filter out 95% of the administrivia requests sent to a
# >list. Majordomo supports this, as does various homegrown list software.
#
# It occurred to me recently that this may even have helped cause the problem
# that lead to this thread. I don't remember any more what the Majordomo code
# does with sub/unsub requests sent to the this, but if it was dropping them
# silently, then no-one could possibly have seen the requests, which would
# certainly tend to send some people into the stratosphere...
Majordomo forwards them to the list owner for review.
-Brent
--
Brent Chapman | Great Circle Associates | Call or email for info about
Brent@GreatCircle.COM | 1057 West Dana Street | upcoming Internet Security
+1 415 962 0841 | Mountain View, CA 94041 | Firewalls Tutorial dates
From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 12 11:00:26 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id RAA28554; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 17:52:16 GMT
Received: from de5.CTD.ORNL.GOV by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id KAA28543; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 10:51:33 -0700
Received: (from de5@localhost) by de5.CTD.ORNL.GOV (8.6.9/8.6.9) id NAA25102; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 13:54:46 -0400
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 1994 13:54:46 -0400
From: Dave Sill
Message-Id: <199407121754.NAA25102@de5.CTD.ORNL.GOV>
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: How to handle threats from disgruntled members
In-Reply-To: <9407121702.AA27658@work.dsg.tandem.com>
References: <9407121702.AA27658@work.dsg.tandem.com>
X-Mailer: VM Version 5.70.L (beta) with GNU Emacs 19.10 Lucid of Wed May 25 1994 on tile.cs.colorado.edu (berkeley-unix)
Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab, Oak Ridge, Tenn., USA
X-Disclaimer: My opinions do not necessarily represent those of my employer
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
>It occurred to me recently that this may even have helped cause the problem
>that lead to this thread. I don't remember any more what the Majordomo code
>does with sub/unsub requests sent to the this, but if it was dropping them
>silently, then no-one could possibly have seen the requests, which would
>certainly tend to send some people into the stratosphere...
Majordomo bounces administrivia requests to the list owner (if this
feature is enabled). The software I use for alpha-osf-managers and
decstation-managers sends a generic bounce message directly to the
user that includes a pointer to the right place to send administrivia.
--
Dave Sill (de5@ornl.gov)
Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Workstation Support
URL http://www.dec.com/pub/DEC/DECinfo/html/dsill.html
From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 12 19:25:40 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id TAA00613; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 19:25:40 GMT
Received: from SUVM.SYR.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id MAA00597; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 12:25:26 -0700
Received: from spider.syr.edu by SUVM.SYR.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with TCP;
Tue, 12 Jul 94 15:28:59 LCL
Received: by spider.syr.edu (5.0/Spike-2.0)
id AA18862; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 15:30:27 +0500
Message-Id: <9407121930.AA18862@spider.syr.edu>
To: List-Managers@greatcircle.com, jmwobus@mailbox.syr.edu
Subject: Re: Attitudes, Service, and Mailing Lists
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 1994 15:30:26 -0400
From: "John M. Wobus"
content-length: 1047
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
I think this debate is very much of a way people cast the problem--I
suspect there is a lot of fundamental agreement on the fact that it
makes sense to offer subscribers some sort of stable service and that
it isn't good to lead them on thinking they will get some service, then
offer it inconsistently. Thus, even if the service is offered for
free, it makes sense for us administrators to discuss the issue of how
to best provide good service to subscribers, and I'm betting that most
list administrators are interested in such things.
The flamebait is the suggestion that people who give their own time to
their subscribers to administer a mailing list and get nothing in
return owe something to their subscribers. It is only natural that
lots of administrators will feel the opposite way--that it is
themselves who are being imposed upon and are owed something,
especially if they have just had to deal with a time-consuming
mailing-list crises. But discussions of how to offer best service need
not appeal to "what is owed".
-John Wobus
From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 12 22:12:41 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id WAA02925; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 22:12:41 GMT
Received: from imcnj.imc.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id PAA02919; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 15:12:31 -0700
From: lmorrow@imcnj.imc.com
Message-Id: <199407122212.PAA02919@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>
Date: Tue Jul 12 18:13:54 EDT 1994
To: List-Managers-Digest@GreatCircle.COM
Content-Type: text
Content-Length: 1645
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Information Management Company
Subject: Information of interest to your users
For those trying to harness computing resources across their enterprise,
IMC (Information Management Company) has a team of products designed to
to integrate all hardware, software and applications and guarantee
transparent UNIX-to-mainframe connectivity: TUXEDO ETP AND OPEN
TRANSPORT.
Fast..
Tuxedo routes client requests instantly, and allows users or functions
to be added without slowing system reponse, adding more processing time
or network overhead. Open TransPort interactively communicates between
the mainframe and Tuxedo UNIX applications over TCP/IP, so data moves
immediately, network wide.
Efficient..
Tuxedo integrates with relational DBMS's with features that turbocharge
database operations. Open TransPort improves network performance and
efficiency by transparently executing mainframe transactions from
multiple Tuxedo servers. Service translation is automatic. A simple
config change adds client/server access. No rewriting. No retraining.
Easy...
End users will get faster database access and improved execution.
Developers focus on creating high-performance applications network
wide, and not on internal transaction processes. Open TransPort
easy access to conventional TP applications without conventional
IMS wrestling means instant access, update, flexible smartsizing
and simplified application design.
OPEN TRANSPORT and TUXEDO ETP give you faster network performance,
drastically reduced costs, simple straight-forward operation.
For details, contact IMC at 908-417-9770 or internet imc@imc.com.
From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 12 22:14:31 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id WAA02948; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 22:14:31 GMT
Received: from imcnj.imc.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id PAA02940; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 15:13:37 -0700
From: lmorrow@imcnj.imc.com
Message-Id: <199407122213.PAA02940@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>
Date: Tue Jul 12 18:13:55 EDT 1994
To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
Content-Type: text
Content-Length: 1645
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Information Management Company
Subject: Information of interest to your users
For those trying to harness computing resources across their enterprise,
IMC (Information Management Company) has a team of products designed to
to integrate all hardware, software and applications and guarantee
transparent UNIX-to-mainframe connectivity: TUXEDO ETP AND OPEN
TRANSPORT.
Fast..
Tuxedo routes client requests instantly, and allows users or functions
to be added without slowing system reponse, adding more processing time
or network overhead. Open TransPort interactively communicates between
the mainframe and Tuxedo UNIX applications over TCP/IP, so data moves
immediately, network wide.
Efficient..
Tuxedo integrates with relational DBMS's with features that turbocharge
database operations. Open TransPort improves network performance and
efficiency by transparently executing mainframe transactions from
multiple Tuxedo servers. Service translation is automatic. A simple
config change adds client/server access. No rewriting. No retraining.
Easy...
End users will get faster database access and improved execution.
Developers focus on creating high-performance applications network
wide, and not on internal transaction processes. Open TransPort
easy access to conventional TP applications without conventional
IMS wrestling means instant access, update, flexible smartsizing
and simplified application design.
OPEN TRANSPORT and TUXEDO ETP give you faster network performance,
drastically reduced costs, simple straight-forward operation.
For details, contact IMC at 908-417-9770 or internet imc@imc.com.
From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 12 22:18:54 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id WAA03017; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 22:18:54 GMT
Received: from nwnexus.wa.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id PAA03011; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 15:18:43 -0700
Received: from locus.halcyon.com by nwnexus.wa.com with SMTP id AA00765
(5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Tue, 12 Jul 1994 15:21:31 -0700
Received: by locus.halcyon.com id AA29383
(5.67b/IDA-1.5 for List-Managers-Digest@greatcircle.com); Tue, 12 Jul 1994 15:21:11 -0700
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 1994 15:21:06 +0100
From: Ralph Sims
Subject: Re: your mail
To: lmorrow@imcnj.imc.com
Cc: List-Managers-Digest@greatcircle.com
In-Reply-To: <199407122212.PAA02919@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>
Message-Id:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Ahem? Let this posting be your only mistake. :)
On Tue, 12 Jul -1 lmorrow@imcnj.imc.com wrote:
> From: Information Management Company
> Subject: Information of interest to your users
From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 13 01:34:10 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id BAA04606; Wed, 13 Jul 1994 01:34:10 GMT
Received: from hamp.hampshire.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id SAA04600; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 18:33:51 -0700
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 1994 18:33:51 -0700
From: mmurrain@hamp.hampshire.edu
Received: from [192.33.12.183] (mac183.hampshire.edu) by hamp.hampshire.edu;
Tue, 12 Jul 94 21:35 EDT
Subject: List software, etc.
To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
Message-id:
X-Envelope-to: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Hi folks.
I am planning to move my lists from one site to another. From a Sun
workstation to a 486 running Linux. I am now running an old version of Unix
listerv. I figure since I want to move the lists anyway, I might as well at
least update, or look for the best list software, and one which will
definitely work with Linux.
So 3 questions:
1) Best software?
2) Can it run on linux?
3) Where can I get it (and docs)?
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id BAA04823; Wed, 13 Jul 1994 01:59:43 GMT
Received: from cs.bu.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id SAA04817; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 18:59:31 -0700
Received: from csa.bu.edu by cs.bu.edu (8.6.4/Spike-2.1)
id WAA04265; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 22:01:44 -0400
From: tasos@cs.bu.edu (Anastasios Kotsikonas)
Received: from localhost by csa.bu.edu (8.6.4/Spike-2.1)
id WAA15387; Tue, 12 Jul 1994 22:02:33 -0400
Message-Id: <199407130202.WAA15387@csa.bu.edu>
Subject: Re: List software, etc.
To: mmurrain@hamp.hampshire.edu
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 1994 22:02:33 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: from "mmurrain@hamp.hampshire.edu" at Jul 12, 94 06:33:51 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Content-Length: 464
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
>
> Hi folks.
> I am planning to move my lists from one site to another. From a Sun
> workstation to a 486 running Linux. I am now running an old version of Unix
> listerv. I figure since I want to move the lists anyway, I might as well at
> least update, or look for the best list software, and one which will
> definitely work with Linux.
listproc 6.0c rev July 12 1994 (today !) incorporates all linux diffs. 7.0
is not yet supported on Linux.
Tasos
From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 13 16:27:58 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id QAA11247; Wed, 13 Jul 1994 16:27:58 GMT
Received: from imcnj.imc.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id JAA11241; Wed, 13 Jul 1994 09:27:43 -0700
Message-Id: <199407131627.JAA11241@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>
From: Lee Morrow
Date: Wed Jul 13 12:29:01 EDT 1994
To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: Apology
Content-Type: text
Content-Length: 668
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
To all,
I apologize for the inadvertent advertisement which was sent to you
yesterday. This occurred because of a mixup in mailing lists, message
content, and a software failure. THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN AGAIN! The ad
which you so rudely received was destined for a group of marketing
lists and not the public in general.
To the list managers, who coordinate the lists which I have intruded
upon, I respect your position and again stress the accidental nature
of this event. Your lists were in a file to "subscribe to" and were
not intended for mailings.
As for the cyberfolks I have disrupted ... I accept all of the flames.
I deserve them.
Sincerely,
Lee Morrow
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 14 03:50:46 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id JAA18026; Thu, 14 Jul 1994 09:34:25 GMT
Received: from alink-gw.apple.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id CAA18019; Thu, 14 Jul 1994 02:34:16 -0700
Received: by alink-gw.apple.com (921113.SGI.UNSUPPORTED_PROTOTYPE/7-Oct-1993-eef)
id AA09878; Thu, 14 Jul 94 02:36:53 -0700
for LIST-MANAGERS@GREATCIRCLE.COM
Date: 14 Jul 94 09:28 GMT
From: JM.HOLDER@AppleLink.Apple.COM (Jean-Marc Holder, Paris,F,FR,IDV)
Subject: Info on setting up list
To: LIST-MANAGERS@GREATCIRCLE.COM
Message-Id: <774178613.9393384@AppleLink.Apple.COM>
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
I have a question similar to Michelle's though a little broader.
I would like to set up a list server from scratch and haven't got a clue where
to start. I currently run a Mac but am willing to move to any other platform.
Here are my questions:
1) How should I estimate the size of system that I need?
2) What list server software offers reeasonable performance with minimal
administration complexity (both the software and underlying OS).
3) What O/S is reccomended (does any list server software run on the Mac)?
4) Is there a source of information for people like me who are just starting
out in this area?
Thanks in advance,
Jean-Marc
Internet address: JM.HOLDER@AppleLink.Apple.COM
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 14 12:59:41 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id MAA20301; Thu, 14 Jul 1994 12:59:41 GMT
Received: from jess.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id FAA20282; Thu, 14 Jul 1994 05:59:23 -0700
Message-Id: <199407141259.FAA20282@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>
Received: from unicorn.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk by jess.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk
with SMTP (PP) id <04413-0@jess.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk>;
Thu, 14 Jul 1994 13:48:48 +0100
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Looking for useful shell scripts etc
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 1994 13:48:42 +0100
From: Malcolm Jackson
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
I use MH's `forw -digest...' to create a digest for my mailing-list twice
a day. The digest is formatted to 80 characters which sometimes causes the
odd character to over-wrap onto the next line. Occasionally the over-wrapped
character is a `full-stop' (ya know, a ".") which causes some mailers to
truncate the digest because the mailer interprets any line that contains
a "." as the end-of-file.
Quite simply, all I'm looking for is a sed or awk script to read through
the digest and remove any line that contains the single "." I need to
incorporate the script into the script that creates the digest. (Hmm, scans
back through message to check if it makes sense. Phrase including the words
"mud" and "clear" come to mind) Oh, well.
I've had a go myself and frankly I'm a bit mistified. Partly because I have
very little info on awk and sed (How do you lot manage to learn anything
from man pages?) and I haven't found any similar examples, and I'm well
aware that most of you lot are boffins and probably find this sort of thing
dead easy!
I could also do with a shell script to take the MH created digest and
convert it to single files for subscribers who's mailers can't burst
digests.
Many thanks for any help you can give me.
Mal.
The Ogri mailing-list. Affiliated to the Federation of European Motorcyclist's.
malcolm.jackson@nott.ac.uk
University of Nottingham
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 14 16:35:40 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id QAA21596; Thu, 14 Jul 1994 16:35:40 GMT
Received: from ruby.ora.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id JAA21590; Thu, 14 Jul 1994 09:35:23 -0700
Received: from rubble.west.ora.com (rubble.west.ora.com [198.112.209.17]) by ruby.ora.com (8.6.8/8.6.4) with SMTP id MAA08255 for ; Thu, 14 Jul 1994 12:38:33 -0400
Received: by rubble.west.ora.com (4.1/SMI-4.1+JP-2.5)
id AA05135; Thu, 14 Jul 94 09:37:17 PDT
From: Jerry Peek
X-Face: 4'>h,#cS;REmrM.0o;MLO(rQ\6!tC3|K"`%_&L/5r'?`z?YFA'^?O_2;uhDj}[Ezd'KN;UN
]JY>}7NI!3#)pemuo^HLsy?e&d;~eMDvq{tVqg_JaK.QQ>aXK,)ruQhThx8,.X|_@Foa75CW:E[=@U@5dA'(H`V>Vm{d[)S8AcVpGs1Jw,p6w{LF
c?o(}7$@3ani]G[joNpQsJ%^kZhox%7\gVhT%uu|8"WXlT=U1:opS-:9hL{kZgxhGvUf?bJ4E
Reply-To: jerry@ora.com
X-Mailer: MH 6.8.3
To: Malcolm Jackson
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: Looking for useful shell scripts etc
In-Reply-To: Message from Malcolm Jackson
of "Thu, 14 Jul 1994 13:48:42 +0100." <199407141259.FAA20282@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 1994 09:37:16 -0700
Message-Id: <5134.774203836@rubble.west.ora.com>
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
I think there are other list-managers readers who use "forw -digest",
too, so I decided to reply to the list...
> I use MH's `forw -digest...' to create a digest for my mailing-list twice
> a day. The digest is formatted to 80 characters which sometimes causes the
> odd character to over-wrap onto the next line. Occasionally the over-wrapped
> character is a `full-stop' (ya know, a ".") which causes some mailers to
> truncate the digest ...
> Quite simply, all I'm looking for is a sed or awk script to read through
> the digest and remove any line that contains the single "."
A sed script to do that looks like:
/^\.$/d
You can put that in a shell script named "dotfix" and invoke it from the
"What now?" prompt by typing "edit dotfix". The script is:
#!/bin/sh
/bin/cp "$1" /tmp/fix$$
/bin/sed '/^\.$/d' /tmp/fix$$ > "$1"
/bin/rm -f /tmp/fix$$
exit 0
You could add some bug proofing to handle things like a full /tmp, an
unwritable draft (in the $1 argument, etc.) but that's the basic idea.
A better solution might be to add a sendproc script that automatically
processes all your outgoing mail and deletes those lines; you wouldn't
have to do anything special. If there's a copy of my Nutshell Handbook
"MH & xmh: E-mail for Users & Programmers" around your office somewhere,
look at the "mysend" script in Section 13.13. You can also get "mysend"
from ftp.uu.net in /published/oreilly/nutshell/MHxmh/MHxmh2.tar.Z.
--
Jerry Peek; O'Reilly & Associates; Sebastopol, CA 95472 USA; jerry@ora.com
Info: gopher gopher.ora.com (or telnet, and login: gopher), or info@ora.com
Orders: (800)998-9938, +1 707-829-0515, fax +1 707-829-0104, or order@ora.com
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 15 03:08:11 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id DAA28587; Fri, 15 Jul 1994 03:08:11 GMT
Received: from netcom.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id UAA28581; Thu, 14 Jul 1994 20:08:01 -0700
Received: by netcom.com (8.6.8.1/SMI-4.1/Netcom)
id UAA20383; Thu, 14 Jul 1994 20:11:37 -0700
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 1994 20:11:37 -0700
From: mcb@netcom.com (Michael C. Berch)
Message-Id: <199407150311.UAA20383@netcom10.netcom.com>
To: List-Managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: List Owners vs. System Administrators
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Chris Koenigsberg writes:
> At the U. of Chicago we're getting ready to introduce a new Majordomo
> list service host, and we're working on our support policies and
> documentation etc. for the new list owners.
> [...]
> Part of our problem right now is to figure out what to do when lots of
> professors, TA's, etc. want to establish mailing lists for each
> section of the courses they teach, but don't have time to do proper
> mailing list owner administration (in our limited tests, professors
> add student addresses by hand, often incorrectly, and then simply
> won't fix them, causing errors on every single message sent to the
> list) ..... how far do we go in providing assistance, etc.
Personally, I don't think mailing lists work really well for this
application, simply because you have to spend so much time setting
them up and tearing them down every term (quarters or semesters).
As well (as you point out) as having to teach list administration.
I'd recommend using local newsgroups, unless there is some arcane
reason that you have to keep the material very private and know
exactly who is is being sent to. Many universities use local
newsgroups on a per-course or per-section basis; the good thing is
that you can just set them up once with the course number or title and
each batch of students merely subscribes at the beginning of the term
and unsubscribes at the end of the term.
This relieves both professors/TAs and local sysadmins of list
management responsibilities while imposing a very tiny burden
(newsgroup creation) on the news server administrator.
--
Michael C. Berch
mcb@postmodern.com / mcb@netcom.com / mcb@greatcircle.com
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 15 05:44:40 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id FAA29945; Fri, 15 Jul 1994 05:44:40 GMT
Received: from hustle.rahul.net by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id WAA29935; Thu, 14 Jul 1994 22:44:24 -0700
Received: from bolero.rahul.net by hustle.rahul.net with SMTP id AA23263
(5.67a8/IDA-1.5 for ); Thu, 14 Jul 1994 22:47:35 -0700
Received: by bolero.rahul.net id AA13847
(5.67a8/IDA-1.5); Thu, 14 Jul 1994 22:47:33 -0700
Message-Id: <199407150547.AA13847@bolero.rahul.net>
To: jerry@ora.com
Cc: Malcolm Jackson ,
list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: Looking for useful shell scripts etc
In-Reply-To: <5134.774203836@rubble.west.ora.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 94 22:47:32 -0700
From: Michelle Dick
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Jerry wrote:
>
> A sed script to do that looks like:
> /^\.$/d
> You can put that in a shell script named "dotfix" and invoke it from the
> "What now?" prompt by typing "edit dotfix". The script is:
> #!/bin/sh
> /bin/cp "$1" /tmp/fix$$
> /bin/sed '/^\.$/d' /tmp/fix$$ > "$1"
> /bin/rm -f /tmp/fix$$
> exit 0
> You could add some bug proofing to handle things like a full /tmp, an
> unwritable draft (in the $1 argument, etc.) but that's the basic idea.
I use forw -digest too. My digest is sent out by cron, so it has to
be automated. Awhile back I hacked together the following script for
cron. It isn't pretty and it's kind of kludgy, but it works. BTW,
the "push" is from Jerry's book.
cp Mail/digest.format Mail/temp.format
scan +fatfree-digest -noreverse -format " %{subject}" >> Mail/temp.format
forw +fatfree-digest all -digest Fatfree -form temp.format -filter digest.filter -nowhatnowproc
cat `mhpath +drafts cur` | sed -e "s/^\.$/ ./" | rcvstore +drafts
rmm +drafts cur
push next
rmm +fatfree-digest all
rm Mail/temp.format
It first tacks the subject listing to the top of the digest, forms the
digest, removes single dot lines, stores the doctored draft, removes
the old one, sends out the digest, and then clears out the old
messages and extraneous temp.format file.
One error still remains: If any of the subject lines contain a "%"
character, the digest fails to get sent and I have to go in and fix it
by hand the next day. This happens about once every other month (1
out of 60 times). A quick fix for this from more knowledgable types
would be appreciated (I guess I should simply pipe the scan output
through sed, replacing "%" with "percent" before catting it to
temp.format). I plan to (eventually -- sigh) use Steve Berg's
excellent SmartList package to manage this list, but for now, this
very inelegant set of commands does the job.
(BTW, the digest goes out when I'm not logged in, so there's little
danger of my online mail activities clashing with the cron-activated
script).
--
Michelle Dick artemis@rahul.net East Palo Alto, CA
Owner, FATFREE Vegetarian Mailing List
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 15 13:43:47 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id NAA03364; Fri, 15 Jul 1994 13:43:47 GMT
Received: from stl-17sima by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id GAA03358; Fri, 15 Jul 1994 06:43:23 -0700
Message-Id: <199407151343.GAA03358@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 94 8:45:04 CDT
From: Rich Zellich
To: List-Managers-Digest@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: Looking for useful shell scripts etc
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
There's something wrong with your network mail-transmission software if
it truncates a message on a single "." (or causes the receiver to do so).
The standard is for the mail-sender to prepend any line starting with a
period with another period - i.e., change:
.ANY-OR-NO-TEXT
to:
..ANY-OR-NO-TEXT
and for the mail receiver to strip off any leading period.
You shouldn't have to do it yourself...
Given that you *do* have the problem, though, there are better ways of
handling it. The one I think preferable is to run "fill" against your
input files before digestifying it. "fill" is a utility that will fold
all your lines to a standard length (with some amount of smarts about
what constitutes a paragraph and when leading spaces should be retained
on lines) - it will break on word boundaries, rather than in the middle
of a text string. The only drawback is that it might not handle some
specially-formatted text correctly - tables, cute signature lines, etc.,
might not work right. The overall simplest method is probably what
you're doing, followed by the sed script "/^\.$/d" which will delete any
line consisting only of a period - or use "s/^\.$/ \./" to change
it to (neater than doing ).
Cheers,
Rich
From list-managers-owner Sat Jul 16 18:14:19 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id SAA17772; Sat, 16 Jul 1994 18:14:19 GMT
Received: from osiris.ac.hmc.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id LAA17766; Sat, 16 Jul 1994 11:14:11 -0700
Received: (from jared@localhost) by osiris.ac.hmc.edu (8.6.8.1/8.6.7) id LAA24019; Sat, 16 Jul 1994 11:17:35 -0700
Date: Sat, 16 Jul 1994 11:17:35 -0700
Message-Id: <199407161817.LAA24019@osiris.ac.hmc.edu>
From: Jared_Rhine@hmc.edu
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: Hard-coded '-approval'
References: <199407160631.XAA13004@osiris.ac.hmc.edu>
<199407161728.NAA00722@bosnia.pop.psu.edu>
X-Attribution: JRhine
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
[Some context; I asked about changing the 'list-approval' hardcoded in
Majordomo into something more configurable; my site currently prefers
'list-manager'.]
>> owner-cccp-l: cccp-l-manager
>> owner-solaris-l: solaris-l-manager
JRhine> You'll note that I already do have 'list-approval' aliased to
JRhine> 'list-manager', but the point was that I feel it will easier for our
JRhine> users to remember the convention of contacting a human at
JRhine> 'list-manager' than 'list-approval'.
David> You should be teaching your users the existing Internet convention of
David> using 'owner-list', not 'list-approval' or 'list-manager'.
David> 'list-approval' is strictly an internal Majordomo convention, not a
David> standard by any means. [...] Other mailing list software (LISTSERV,
David> and others) use the 'owner-list' convention. (see RFC 1211)
I've never encountered the 'owner' convention in any sort of formalized
setting (RFC1211 included; Weltine and Postel merely state that most people
don't understand list ownership and give their solution to the problem. The
status of RFC 1211 is that "it does not specify an Internet standard.") I
use the 'owner-list' aliases because it is how sendmail 8 specifies where
bounces should go; I've never encountered it in any other context and I
would prefer not to confuse the two functions.
David> You'll be doing your users a disservice by getting them used to using
David> non-standard conventions.
I've been ignorant of this "convention" my entire mailing list career and it
has never adversely affected me. Shrug, maybe I've been lucky, but I have
dealt with a _lot_ of mailing lists and am continually subscribing and
unsubscribing.
Redirecting to list-managers: How prominent is this "standard"? Of your
lists, how many have 'owner-list' as the owner, and how many have some other
syntax?
--
Jared_Rhine@hmc.edu | Harvey Mudd College | http://www.hmc.edu/~jared/home.html
"Truth is an evaluation of a statement within a context."
-- attributed to David Butterfield
From list-managers-owner Sat Jul 16 18:24:34 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id SAA17835; Sat, 16 Jul 1994 18:24:34 GMT
Received: from osiris.ac.hmc.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id LAA17829; Sat, 16 Jul 1994 11:24:28 -0700
Received: (from jared@localhost) by osiris.ac.hmc.edu (8.6.8.1/8.6.7) id LAA24222; Sat, 16 Jul 1994 11:27:52 -0700
Date: Sat, 16 Jul 1994 11:27:52 -0700
Message-Id: <199407161827.LAA24222@osiris.ac.hmc.edu>
From: Jared_Rhine@hmc.edu
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Useful 'Precendence:' values
X-Attribution: JRhine
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
I've scanned a variety of RFCs looking for a specification of possible
values for the 'Precedence' header. I have been unable to find any such
specification, and now that I think about it, any real reference at all.
Could someone kindly point me towards a specification and/or list of
acceptable values for the Internet Mail header 'Precedence'?
--
Jared_Rhine@hmc.edu | Harvey Mudd College | http://www.hmc.edu/~jared/home.html
"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely
rearranging their prejudices." -- William James
From list-managers-owner Sat Jul 16 20:39:17 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id UAA18418; Sat, 16 Jul 1994 20:39:17 GMT
Received: from wilma.cs.utk.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id NAA18412; Sat, 16 Jul 1994 13:39:09 -0700
Received: from LOCALHOST by wilma.cs.utk.edu with SMTP (cf v2.9c-UTK)
id QAA08832; Sat, 16 Jul 1994 16:29:19 -0400
Message-Id: <199407162029.QAA08832@wilma.cs.utk.edu>
From: Keith Moore
To: Jared_Rhine@hmc.edu
cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com, moore@cs.utk.edu
Subject: Re: Useful 'Precendence:' values
In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 16 Jul 1994 11:27:52 PDT."
<199407161827.LAA24222@osiris.ac.hmc.edu>
Date: Sat, 16 Jul 1994 16:29:11 -0400
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
> I've scanned a variety of RFCs looking for a specification of possible
> values for the 'Precedence' header. I have been unable to find any such
> specification, and now that I think about it, any real reference at all.
Precedence is a sendmail-ism (though some other mailers
support it), and is non-standard.
Sendmail uses this header to determine queueing priority (which messages
should be sent first) and also to determine whether a bounced message should
include the entire contents of the original message or just the headers.
Some versions of vacation recognize certain Precedence values to mean "don't
send a vacation-gram in response to this message. The list of values includes
list, junk, and bulk...but this varies according to which version of vacation
you have. (Precedence: list is a recent invention, so older versions of
vacation don't support it.)
The usual reason to use the Precedence header with a mailing list is to keep
vacation from replying to the message.
HOWEVER, there is at least flavor kind of mail gateway which encodes the
foreign mail system's idea of Priority into the Precedence header. If the
Internet side of that gateway gets a message with a Precedence header that it
doesn't understand, it bounces the message. (For example, "junk" will go
through but "bulk" will not.)
There is also at least one list server that refuses to forward any message
to the list subscribers, that contains a Precedence header of junk.
So there is NO value for precedence which will both work with vacation,
and also pass through all of the mail handlers out there.
I used to emit "Precedence: bulk" on my list traffic, but then someone behind
a brain-damaged gateway subscribed to one of my lists. Then I changed it to
"Precedence: junk", but eventually a list manager complained because his
list-server was bouncing it. So now I don't emit "Precedence" at all, and I
delete it if it appears in the input, before sending it to the list.
To solve the vacation problem, I'm interested in defining a standard MIME
format for vacation-style replies.
@begin(soapbox)
Any MTA, gateway, or list expander which refuses to pass a message because
of the contents of an extension header is BROKEN.
@end(soapbox)
Keith Moore
From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 20 15:05:15 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id PAA05468; Wed, 20 Jul 1994 15:05:15 GMT
Received: from netcom.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id IAA05454; Wed, 20 Jul 1994 08:04:46 -0700
Received: by netcom.com (8.6.8.1/SMI-4.1/Netcom)
id IAA11456; Wed, 20 Jul 1994 08:08:17 -0700
Message-Id: <199407201508.IAA11456@netcom5.netcom.com>
From: Jerry Peek
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 1994 08:08:16 PDT
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92)
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Mailserver URL proposal
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
This came from the URI list (uri@bunyip.com) by way of Jill Foster on the
MBS list (mbs-user-req@mailbase.ac.uk). If you want to discuss it (and
have your comments heard by the people working on the proposal), the
place to do that is on the URI list.
--Jerry Peek, jerry@ora.com
>Date: Tue, 19 Jul 1994 21:33:41 -0400
>To: uri@bunyip.com
>From: hoymand@gate.net (Dirk Herr-Hoyman)
>Subject: Mailserver URL proposal
>
>As I began the call for a mailserver URL, I am now trying to back this up
>with a concrete proposal. I know that there are some parts that may be
>controversial, but I still feel this URL is needed in some form. The
>mailto URL is insufficient.
>
>Larry had asked me to look at the MIME mailserver content type.
>Unfortunately, this is inadequate as a URL, as it only specificies some
>headers (the Subject) and leaves the body as itself.
>
>So, I came up with the proposal you see below, which I tried to make as
>simple as possible, yet cover all the mailservers we are likely to see.
>The part I am not sure about is substituting at run time, which feels alot
>like a form. Here goes (and I've got my bullet-proof vest on, so fire away
>:-)
>
>--- cut here ---
>
>Mailserver URL
>
>There are numerous mail servers that enable the retrieval of some
>reasource by commands embedded in a mail message. Since there
>is no uniform method for how the commands are embedded (Subject
>header, body of the message) nor for the syntax of the commands
>a general purpose mailserver URL is defined.
>
>This URL works differently than others defined to date, as it
>delivers the resource asynchronously to a mailbox, rather than
>synchronously on a TCP port, ready to be used directly. However,
>as there is significant use of mailservers such a URL is needed
>to accommodate current practice. Such servers serve an audience
>that is not directly connected to the Internet and are likely
>to remain important into the foreseeable future.
>
>URL:mailserver:////
>
>headers = *[ *xchar "/" ]
>body = * bodysegment "/"
>bodysegment = *uchars | *substsegment
>substsegment = "?" *uchars | *uchars
>
>
>In essense, the mailserver URL is composed of lines of text, with
>end of line represented with a /. The mail header is separated from
>the message body with a //, representing a blank line. This is, then,
>a literatal translation of an RFC822 message into a URL form.
>
>In order to be delivered to the correct mailbox, From: header,
>with a valid e-mail address, should be included in the mailserver
>URL. As this is a run-time binding, it will be up to the client
>software or other agent utilizing a mailserver URL to supply such
>a line.
>
>Other run-time bindings might be desirable, such as adding the
>full name to a "subscribe" command in the body of the message.
>For these a "?token" is used to signify additional information
>is needed. This could be filled on thru a forms mechanism on
>a client, for example.
>
>Examples:
>
>The static URL, found in an HTML document for example, is:
>mailserver://almanac@joe.ext.vt.edu//send%20joe%20june%201994%20feature%201
>
>Actual URL used is:
>mailserver://almanac@joe.ext.vt.edu/From:%20hoymand@gate.net//send%20joe%20j
>une%201994%20feature%201
>
>This sends the message "send joe june 1994 feature 1" to the email
>server at almanac@joe.ext.vt.edu. The response will be delivered to
>hoymand@gate.net.
>
>mailserver://listserv@uhupvm1.uh.edu//subscribe%20pacs-l?fullname
>
>This URL is used to send a "subscribe" message. Note the use of
>"?fullname", which is means that additional text, in this case
>a full name, is needed.
>
>The exact semantics of how the "?token" are used are left undefined.
>The "token" string could be used in a prompt for input by a
>client application. However, there is no guarantee that the string
>"token" has any meaning, other than as a place holder.
>
>
>Security Considerations
>
>This URL is essentially a means to send SMTP mail. Since the From
>address is to be filled in at run-time, it could be a vehicle for sending
>forged mail. However, such forgery is already possible thru executing
>mail transport agents directly, such as sendmail, or in POP mail clients.
>This URL does not create any higher degree of insecurity in SMTP mail,
>though it could contribute to an already insecure situation
>
>--
>Dirk Herr-Hoyman | Practice
>CyberBeach Publishing | random acts of kindness
> * Internet publishing services | and senseless beauty
>Lake Worth, Florida, USA |
>Home Page:
>Phone: +1.407.540.8309
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 21 10:35:07 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id RAA20790; Thu, 21 Jul 1994 17:13:39 GMT
Received: from cray.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id KAA20780; Thu, 21 Jul 1994 10:13:19 -0700
Received: from sdiv.cray.com (ironwood.cray.com) by cray.com (Bob mailer 1.3)
id AA16262; Thu, 21 Jul 94 12:16:32 CDT
Received: from birch111 by sdiv.cray.com (5.0/CRI-5.15.b.orgabbr Sdiv)
id AA03428; Thu, 21 Jul 1994 12:16:31 +0600
Received: from localhost by birch111 (5.0/btd-b2)
id AA10194; Thu, 21 Jul 1994 12:16:30 +0600
Message-Id: <9407211716.AA10194@birch111>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: News to Mail gateways
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 1994 12:16:29 -0500
From: David Bowen
Content-Length: 542
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
The list that I manage has reached the point where conversion to a news
group is a possibility. We have around 200 subscribers and another 200
receiving a daily digest. Traffic runs around 20 messages/day. One
obstacle is the fact that some of our subscribers do not currently have
access to Usenet news. I know news/mail gateways exist. Are there standard
ones available via ftp or do people roll their own? Reply either to the
list or to me directly. I will post a summary if people are interested.
David Bowen
dmb@sdiv.cray.com
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 21 10:41:58 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id RAA20977; Thu, 21 Jul 1994 17:23:15 GMT
Received: from midway.uchicago.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id KAA20966; Thu, 21 Jul 1994 10:22:51 -0700
From: ckoenig@midway.uchicago.edu
Received: from kimbark.uchicago.edu by midway.uchicago.edu for majordomo-users@greatcircle.com Thu, 21 Jul 94 12:26:13 CDT
Received: from localhost.uchicago.edu by kimbark.uchicago.edu (4.1/UCCO-1.0A)
id AA24229; Thu, 21 Jul 94 12:25:57 CDT
Message-Id: <9407211725.AA24229@kimbark.uchicago.edu>
Reply-To: ckk@uchicago.edu
To: majordomo-users@greatcircle.com, list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: My Listproc-Majordomo comparison
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 94 12:25:56 -0500
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Here's a slight revision of something I posted to comp.mail.misc,
following up a thread there. Some people on the Majordomo-Users and
List-Managers lists apparently hadn't seen this on the newsgroup. Feel
free to add this to whatever archives. Tasos, the author of ListProc,
said that I was basically on the mark concerning ListProc.
Chris Koenigsberg: ckk@uchicago.edu, ckoenig@midway.uchicago.edu
U. of Chicago Academic Information Technologies
########################
Subject: Re: Which is better Majordomo or Listserv?
References: <2t7qgu$773@ccnet.ccnet.com>
The real LISTSERV (Revised LISTSERV) relies on Bitnet networking
transport protocols.
A complex Unix list processor was written, in a partial emulation of
the Bitnet LISTSERV. The "Listserv for Unix" system was renamed
"listproc" last summer, after threats from the original LISTSERV
author, because it differs in user interface and list owner interface
from LISTSERV, and was accused of misleading users who would confuse
it with the "real thing".
Majordomo was apparently written, in Perl, because listproc (AKA Unix
LISTSERV) was too complex and did not do quite what was needed to
manage a set of Usenix SAGE mailing lists.
LISTSERV and ListProc want the whole world to be interconnected, i.e.
all mailing list server hosts can know about each other and exchange
info on remote lists; someday I imagine there'll be a DNS-like
namespace of mailing lists and server hosts out there somehow.
Majordomo, on the other hand, is a much smaller package, designed for
easier administration on an individual host, and I have even heard (on
the Majordomo-Users list) that some Majordomo hosts do NOT wish their
lists advertised publicly on the net.
We (U. of Chicago Academic Information Technologies) are planning to
go ahead and offer new campus list management service soon using
Majordomo, but we did have some requests from faculty to use listproc
(they asked for LISTSERV but since this is on Unix, they would have to
get listproc instead).
I tried briefly to configure and build listproc for a comparison test,
but gave up when it got weird, probably too soon, maybe I'll try again
when I have more time to play with compilers etc :-) Listproc
documentation etc. is a bit cryptic and not well thought out overall,
at least from the point of view of someone new to the concept trying
to understand all of its complex workings. I have seen correspondence
from the Listproc author, on the listproc users' mailing list
archives, where he defends his documentation because it is in the
usual Unix style. (maybe "damning by faint praise"? :-)
Majordomo is simpler and written in Perl scripts, so documentation is
more comprehensive, and is improving, as an active community of
developers is contributing to it. It only took 2 days for the current
maintainers to put out small patches to fix some recently-discovered
potential security holes, and since it's Perl, no recompilation is
needed.
Listproc requires a server daemon to be alive, which forks off child
processes somewhat like lpd, and appears to be designed to do a lot of
complex, tricky things which requires a lot of C source code doing
networking stuff (multi-level automated archiving and indexing, with
retrieval via ftpmail, automatic digestification creation and
propagation, remote cooperation of "peer" list hosts, interactive
administration via TCP connections, operation over other transport and
delivery protocols besides TCP and SMTP, maintain its own message
queueing system independently of the system mail queues, ...), which
are perhaps overkill (for us, in a completely Internet TCP/SMTP
environment), perhaps not, this is what I'd like to hear more
discussion about.
Majordomo is more focused on the essentials of individual mailing list
management, and is implemented as Perl scripts, which are modular and
can be used in subsets, as they are individually invoked out of system
mail aliases. It lets the underlying system software do the networking
and message queueing stuff, so it doesn't have to deal with TCP
sockets etc. Majordomo's recently-added archiving, digestification,
etc. is simpler than listproc's, and is undergoing more improvements.
Apparently, Listproc's daemon with its own queueing system used to
give better performance, for high-traffic lists on heavily loaded
server hosts, than older versions of sendmail. But now, newer sendmail
versions have greatly improved efficiency so Majordomo with new
sendmail may be just as fast and load-capable as a Listproc system.
(comments welcomed on this point?)
With Listproc, if you can get it configured and running smoothly, you
can apparently join a growing inter-operating network of cooperating
"peer" list hosts, and even inter-operate with Bitnet LISTSERV list
hosts too. Thus your local users can easily find out about other lists
elsewhere, you can have local re-distributions for a larger global
list, etc. (but re-distributions can be a source of administrative
headache when global list owners try to track down mysterious errors,
or unsubscribe requests from people who aren't subscribed to the
global list.... :-).
One big flaw in Listproc's design, in my opinion (correct me if I'm
wrong!), is that it does funny things to the headers of outgoing
messages which are arguably "wrong" in the RFC 822 SMTP world (I've
seen arguments in the listproc users' archives), and for
incoming messages, it only uses the Unix From field (i.e. the SMTP
Envelope MAIL FROM, in the SMTP world) to determine the sender's
identity, for subscribing, unsubscribing, accepting or rejecting
messages, etc.
Majordomo on the other hand will use the RFC 822 headers (Gene
Spafford's Perl code for parsing mail headers), so it will recognize a
"Reply-To:" for example, and will allow you to subscribe your
canonical address, even if the return path of your message is
convoluted (although the list owner may need to approve your
subscription). You have various per-list configuration options, about
what appears in the various RFC 822/SMTP headers, concerning the
return address for errors, the default reply address (to the list, to
the original author, to the list owner/moderator, etc.)...
Both Listproc and Majordomo share concepts like moderated lists.
Listproc's moderated lists have a queue of incoming messages, and the
moderator has to approve or reject them by giving the message queue
numbers to the server, in order to clear the queue.
For a moderated list, Majordomo simply bounces messages to the
moderator and then forgets about them, so the moderator can easily
re-submit them with an approval password in a new header. Any message
arriving with the proper approval password header will be
automatically approved and propagated to the list.
An outfit called CREN, an offshoot of Educom, has taken over the
development of both the Bitnet LISTSERV, and the Unix Listproc, and is
planning to offer a commercial version of Listproc sometime later in
1994. They have a global vision building on the inter-operating "peer"
list host concept, integrating gopher, ftp, etc. (their vision
statement doesn't mention WWW but I assume that must be added soon
:-).
We are very interested to see if CREN's new Listproc version will come
with improved support, including better documentation, and we might
consider switching to it sometime in the future, but we are planning
to stick with Majordomo for now.
Chris Koenigsberg: ckk@uchicago.edu, ckoenig@midway.uchicago.edu
U. of Chicago Academic Information Technologies
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 21 11:05:14 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id SAA21530; Thu, 21 Jul 1994 18:02:18 GMT
Received: from mycroft.GreatCircle.COM by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id LAA21482; Thu, 21 Jul 1994 11:00:46 -0700
Message-Id: <199407211800.LAA21482@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>
To: ckk@uchicago.edu
cc: majordomo-users@greatcircle.com, list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: My Listproc-Majordomo comparison
In-reply-to: Your message of Thu, 21 Jul 94 12:25:56 -0500
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 1994 11:00:45 -0700
From: Brent Chapman
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
ckoenig@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
# Majordomo was apparently written, in Perl, because listproc (AKA Unix
# LISTSERV) was too complex and did not do quite what was needed to
# manage a set of Usenix SAGE mailing lists.
That was _exactly_ why Majordomo was written. I obtained and tried to
install and configure listproc, spent a day or two on it, and decided
it was going to be easier to write something in perl that would do
exactly what I wanted.
For a discussion of the why's and wherefore's and early genesis of
Majordomo, take a look at my paper "How I manage 17 mailing lists
without answering -request mail", originally published at the USENIX
LISA 6 conference a couple of years ago, and now available for
anonymous FTP from FTP.GreatCircle.COM, file
pub/majordomo/majordomo.paper.ps.Z.
# Majordomo, on the other hand, is a much smaller package, designed for
# easier administration on an individual host
Well, it started out that way anyway... There's a growing trend to
add ever more features to Majordomo. This is one of the reasons I'm
no longer actively involved in Majordomo development I have nothing
against and no arguments with the folks (particularly John Rouillard,
who is managing the whole effort) who are working hard to extend and
expand Majordomo; I just have no interest in participating. Majordomo
already does most of what _I_ want it to do. I'm extremely pleased
that other folks are finding it useful, and finding it a good platform
to use as a starting point for the things _they_ want to do.
# and I have even heard (on
# the Majordomo-Users list) that some Majordomo hosts do NOT wish their
# lists advertised publicly on the net.
Yes. I expect that there are at least as many Majordomo servers
running private lists as public ones.
# I tried briefly to configure and build listproc for a comparison test,
# but gave up when it got weird, probably too soon, maybe I'll try again
# when I have more time to play with compilers etc :-) Listproc
# documentation etc. is a bit cryptic and not well thought out overall,
# at least from the point of view of someone new to the concept trying
# to understand all of its complex workings. I have seen correspondence
# from the Listproc author, on the listproc users' mailing list
# archives, where he defends his documentation because it is in the
# usual Unix style. (maybe "damning by faint praise"? :-)
As opposed to Majordomo's documentation, which was almost non-existant
until recently... :-) Actually, the new README file that John
Rouillard wrote, the chapter from the new "Managing Internet
Information Services" book from O'Reilly & Associates that they let us
extract and make available for anonymous FTP, the online manual pages
for some components written by Jim Duncan, the FAQ originally
assembled by Vincent Skahan, as well as contributions by lots of other
folks, go a long way towards improving the documentation situation for
Majordomo.
# Majordomo is simpler and written in Perl scripts, so documentation is
# more comprehensive, and is improving
Well, OK. :-) When I was doing most of the Majordomo development, I
always said that documentation (or lack thereof) was one of
Majordomo's weak points, and I'm glad to see that the documentation is
improving faster than new features are being added now that somebody
else has taken over development.
# as an active community of
# developers is contributing to it. It only took 2 days for the current
# maintainers to put out small patches to fix some recently-discovered
# potential security holes, and since it's Perl, no recompilation is
# needed.
I think this is one of the key strengths of Majordomo: the very active
Majordomo-Users and Majordomo-Workers mailing lists. They go a long
way towards making up for the documentation (or lack thereof); you can
ask a question, and get a helpful and almost immediate answer.
# Apparently, Listproc's daemon with its own queueing system used to
# give better performance, for high-traffic lists on heavily loaded
# server hosts, than older versions of sendmail. But now, newer sendmail
# versions have greatly improved efficiency so Majordomo with new
# sendmail may be just as fast and load-capable as a Listproc system.
# (comments welcomed on this point?)
I have no experience with listproc in order to provide a comparison,
but here's a data point. I run the Firewalls mailing list, with over
2000 subscribers and about 20-40 messages/day, plus a couple of dozen
other mailing lists (totalling another couple of thousand subscribers
and another 20-40 messages/day) on a Sun 3/60. Upgrading to the new
8.6.x version of Sendmail made an immense difference in performance.
-Brent
--
Brent Chapman | Great Circle Associates | Call or email for info about
Brent@GreatCircle.COM | 1057 West Dana Street | upcoming Internet Security
+1 415 962 0841 | Mountain View, CA 94041 | Firewalls Tutorial dates
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 21 19:00:47 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id TAA22708; Thu, 21 Jul 1994 19:00:47 GMT
Received: from ftp.std.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id LAA22650; Thu, 21 Jul 1994 11:59:42 -0700
Received: from world.std.com by ftp.std.com (8.6.8.1/Spike-8-1.0)
id PAA07353; Thu, 21 Jul 1994 15:03:07 -0400
Received: by world.std.com (5.65c/Spike-2.0)
id AA27546; Thu, 21 Jul 1994 14:52:02 -0400
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 1994 14:52:01 -0400 (EDT)
From: Houghton Mifflin Math
Subject: Re: My Listproc-Majordomo comparison
To: ckk@uchicago.edu
Cc: majordomo-users@GreatCircle.COM, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <9407211725.AA24229@kimbark.uchicago.edu>
Message-Id:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
I have been doing some research on mailing lists and I would like to make
a small clarification. Listproc (formerly named "Unix Listserv") will be
released as a commercial product. However, try not to get this confused
with another commercial product created by the original author of
LISTSERV - "LISTSERV for Unix". LISTSERV for Unix has been ported over
from the original VM platform on BITNET and is now fully functional and
supported on Unix. LISTSERV for Unix is a product of L-SOFT
International (sales@lsoft.com).
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 22 03:59:38 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id JAA07696; Fri, 22 Jul 1994 09:40:51 GMT
Received: from CRVAX.SRI.COM by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id CAA07690; Fri, 22 Jul 1994 02:40:39 -0700
Message-Id: <199407220940.CAA07690@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>
Received: From PIGPEN.SRI.COM by CRVAX.SRI.COM with TCP; Fri, 22 JUL 94 00:53:23 PDT
X-Sender: vivian@sri.com
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 1994 00:53:42 -0700
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
From: vivian@sri.com (Vivian Neou)
Subject: New version of the LoL
X-Mailer:
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
I have almost completed a major revision of the List of Lists. This is
the list of e-mail lists that was originally started by Rich Zellich
back when there was only an Arpanet. I am sending this notice out now
rather than when I am completely done because I will have time for the
next couple weeks to make quick updates if you find mistakes in the
current version - so if you are a list owner, please check your entry in
the list and let me know if there are errors.
This is the first complete revision of the list in many years. I have
attempted to verify that all the lists are still valid. However, there
are over 900 entries in this list and I cannot guarantee the accuracy of
each listing. If you find errors please let me know! I also
appreciate getting entries for lists that are not included in the
current LoL.
The new list is on SRI.COM and may be retrieved via anonymous FTP or
through the e-mail server at MAIL-SERVER@SRI.COM (include the command
"send interest-groups.txt" in your message).
I am looking for a few new official sites for the list, since SRI will
not be able to host it much longer. If you are interested in officially
hosting the list, please let me know (I will continue to do updates on
my system at home - I would just like to make the list available on one
or more sites with good connectivity).
Please send updates to me (vivian@sri.com) rather than to the old update
address (interest-groups-request@nisc.sri.com). I will probably be
putting up new versions of the list every 3-4 days through the beginning
of August. After the list has settled down, I will only be putting out
new versions once a month.
Vivian Neou
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 22 13:55:49 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id NAA09501; Fri, 22 Jul 1994 13:55:49 GMT
Received: from campino.informatik.rwth-aachen.de by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id GAA09485; Fri, 22 Jul 1994 06:55:31 -0700
Received: from tabaqui (tabaqui.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE) by campino.informatik.rwth-aachen.de
(4.1/campino-5) id AA20525; Fri, 22 Jul 94 15:58:29 +0200
Received: by tabaqui (4.1/POOL.3)
id AA03770; Fri, 22 Jul 94 15:57:42 +0200
Message-Id: <9407221357.AA03770@tabaqui>
From: berg@pool.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE (Stephen R. van den Berg)
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 1994 15:57:41 +0200
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: MIME digest format, contents and administrivia
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
As far as I know, MIME digest format only caters for the individual
messages inside of it.
It doesn't really say what to do with a contents listing or an administrivia
paragraph. Common sense suggests that you'd simply insert these between
the header and the first separator (according to the old de-facto digest
format).
However, experience shows that some MIME readers tend to throw away
this kind of out-of-band information. They can't really be blamed because
the MIME rfc indeed says that it's an implementation issue if this information
is displayed or not.
What do you think is the best way to deal with this (from a digest-generator
point of view)?
1. Indeed stick the info between header and first separator. Assuming that
mail readers will improve and will soon be capable of displaying this
information as well?
2. Create a pseudo message at the front of the digest and stick it in there?
3. Something else?
--
Sincerely, berg@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de
Stephen R. van den Berg (AKA BuGless).
"Good moaning!"
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 22 15:07:53 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id PAA10164; Fri, 22 Jul 1994 15:07:53 GMT
Received: from grendel.tac.nyc.ny.us by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id IAA10157; Fri, 22 Jul 1994 08:07:42 -0700
Received: (from news@localhost)
by grendel.tac.nyc.ny.us (8.6.9/8.6.9/1.21.kim) with netnews id PAA26417
for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 22 Jul 1994 15:45:03 +0100
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 1994 14:37:27 GMT
From: kim@tac.nyc.ny.us (Kimmo Suominen)
Message-ID:
Organization: Trans-Atlantic Communications
References: <9407221357.AA03770@tabaqui>
Subject: Re: MIME digest format, contents and administrivia
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
>>>>> "SRB" == Stephen R van den Berg
>>>>> writes:
SRB> 1. Indeed stick the info between header and first
SRB> separator. Assuming that mail readers will improve and
SRB> will soon be capable of displaying this information as
SRB> well?
Usually this space is used to inform non-MIME recipients that
the following message is in MIME. MIME-capable readers really
usually throw away this bit.
SRB> 2. Create a pseudo message at the front of the digest and
SRB> stick it in there?
This would sound like the way to to me.
--
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
( Kimmo Suominen "That's what I think" )
( Trans-Atlantic Communications kim@tac.nyc.ny.us )
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 22 08:46:16 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id PAA10892; Fri, 22 Jul 1994 15:38:56 GMT
Received: from campino.informatik.rwth-aachen.de by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id IAA10876; Fri, 22 Jul 1994 08:38:35 -0700
Received: from tabaqui (tabaqui.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE) by campino.informatik.rwth-aachen.de
(4.1/campino-5) id AA21016; Fri, 22 Jul 94 17:41:42 +0200
Received: by tabaqui (4.1/POOL.3)
id AA03972; Fri, 22 Jul 94 17:40:56 +0200
Message-Id: <9407221540.AA03972@tabaqui>
From: berg@pool.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE (Stephen R. van den Berg)
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 1994 17:40:55 +0200
In-Reply-To: Kimmo Suominen's message as of 1994 Jul 22 Fri 14:37.
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: MIME digest format, contents and administrivia
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Kimmo Suominen wrote:
>>>>>> "SRB" == Stephen R van den Berg
>>>>>> writes:
>SRB> 1. Indeed stick the info between header and first
>SRB> separator. Assuming that mail readers will improve and
>SRB> will soon be capable of displaying this information as
>SRB> well?
>Usually this space is used to inform non-MIME recipients that
>the following message is in MIME.
Hmmm..., but this information is actually unneeded because the MIME-digest
format can easily be read without a MIME reader.
--
Sincerely, berg@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de
Stephen R. van den Berg (AKA BuGless).
"Good moaning!"
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 22 16:07:30 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id QAA11386; Fri, 22 Jul 1994 16:07:30 GMT
Received: from ELZIP.UTHSCSA.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id JAA11379; Fri, 22 Jul 1994 09:07:23 -0700
Received: from spcmail.uthscsa.edu (YAHOO) by uthscsa.edu (PMDF V4.3-8 #5193)
id <01HF06OTVUSG006BBI@uthscsa.edu>; Fri, 22 Jul 1994 11:10:52 -0500 (CDT)
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 1994 11:11:18 +0000
From: Scott Mitchell
Subject: Re: MIME digest format, contents and administrivia
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Message-id: <01HF06OTWXDE006BBI@uthscsa.edu>
X-Envelope-to: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
>> Usually this space is used to inform non-MIME recipients that
>> the following message is in MIME.
> Hmmm..., but this information is actually unneeded because the MIME-digest
> format can easily be read without a MIME reader.
When MIME was new, the boundary markers confused people who didn't have
MIME readers. This use of the "preamble" area was actually hinted at in
RFC1341.
Scott Mitchell
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
mitchell@uthscsa.edu
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 22 16:42:36 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id QAA11867; Fri, 22 Jul 1994 16:42:36 GMT
Received: from jess.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id JAA11858; Fri, 22 Jul 1994 09:41:40 -0700
Received: from unicorn.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk by jess.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk
with SMTP (PP) id <07588-0@jess.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk>;
Fri, 22 Jul 1994 17:44:25 +0100
To: berg@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Stephen R. van den Berg)
cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: MIME digest format, contents and administrivia
In-reply-to: Message from berg@pool.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE of 22 Jul 1994 15:57:41 BST
X-Organization: Cripps Computing Centre, University of Nottingham
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 1994 17:44:09 +0100
Message-ID: <5769.774895449@unicorn.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk>
From: David Osborne
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Stephen R. van den Berg writes [22 Jul 1994 15:57:41 BST]:
> As far as I know, MIME digest format only caters for the individual
> messages inside of it.
> It doesn't really say what to do with a contents listing or an administrivia
> paragraph. Common sense suggests that you'd simply insert these between
> the header and the first separator (according to the old de-facto digest
> format).
[...]
> What do you think is the best way to deal with this (from a digest-generator
> point of view)?
> 1. Indeed stick the info between header and first separator. Assuming that
> mail readers will improve and will soon be capable of displaying this
> information as well?
> 2. Create a pseudo message at the front of the digest and stick it in there?
> 3. Something else?
There's a discussion of how to do this using MIME in Jerry Sweet's paper
on the MIME facilities in MH, "A Multi-Media E-Mail Tutorial With MH"
(available via anonymous ftp:
ftp://ftp.ics.uci.edu/mh/contrib/multimedia/mhn-tutorial.ps.Z (141k)
ftp://ftp.ics.uci.edu/mh/contrib/multimedia/mhn-tutorial.tex.Z (48k)
)
The example in section 4.2 shows how Marshall Rose builds a MIME
version of his newsletter, "The Simple Times", each copy being a
multipart/mixed document, with nested multiparts containing text/plain
parts for the title and contents. The example isn't a mail digest,
but could easily include a multipart/digest part. I've been thinking
on and off for a while now of distributing the UKTeX Digest and TeXhax
Digest in this form.
~~David Osborne
Cripps Computing Centre, University of Nottingham
(UKTeX Digest and TeXhax Digest editor/moderator)
mail: David.Osborne@nottingham.ac.uk
From list-managers-owner Sun Jul 24 17:58:12 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id RAA05731; Sun, 24 Jul 1994 17:58:12 GMT
Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id KAA05725; Sun, 24 Jul 1994 10:57:56 -0700
Message-Id: <199407241757.KAA05725@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>
Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by SEARN.SUNET.SE (IBM VM SMTP V2R2)
with BSMTP id 4186; Sun, 24 Jul 94 19:59:19 +0200
Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin ERIC@SEARN) by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with RFC822 id 0388; Sun, 24 Jul 1994 19:59:19 +0200
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 19:58:48 +0200
From: Eric Thomas
Subject: Clarifications regarding LISTSERV
To: list-managers@GREATCIRCLE.COM
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
I have been sent a copy of a couple of messages recently posted to this
list. Some of these messages contain incorrect information, which I would
like to correct. I understand that these are genuine mistakes and am not
trying to insinuate anything :-) I just want to prevent incorrect
information from spreading and getting out of control.
>The real LISTSERV (Revised LISTSERV) relies on Bitnet networking
>transport protocols.
This was true until L-Soft international, the company that now develops
and sells LISTSERV, released LISTSERV-TCP/IP in March 94 (back then, for
VM only). LISTSERV-TCP/IP is fully compatible with the regular LISTSERV,
except of course that you lose the functions that are specific to BITNET,
like NJE delivery. LISTSERV-TCP/IP interoperates with regular LISTSERVs
running version 1.7f (APR93) or higher (96% of the LISTSERVs do).
>A complex Unix list processor was written, in a partial emulation of the
>Bitnet LISTSERV. The "Listserv for Unix" system was renamed "listproc"
>last summer, after threats from the original LISTSERV author, because it
>differs in user interface and list owner interface from LISTSERV, and
>was accused of misleading users who would confuse it with the "real
>thing".
Well, ListProc users were contacting me for assistance on solving
ListProc problems, saying they saw my name in the help file and, between
that and the name of the product, assumed I wrote it, in spite of the
copyright on the documentation :-) In many instances these requests were
even made on public lists, so anyone can check I'm not making it up :-) I
have never had that problem with Majordomo, and in fact I never had any
problem with Majordomo or its authors. There is clearly a need for a
powerful, free list manager for people who would not be able to afford a
commercial product, and Majordomo is a good choice because the source
code is automatically available and people can make the modifications
they want or need. This was one of the reasons for the initial success of
LISTSERV (which was initially written in REXX, a scripting language for
VM). If people had a problem, they could easily change the code to do
what they wanted. They would then tell me about the change they made, and
I would arrange for it to be possible without code change in the next
version.
>LISTSERV and ListProc want the whole world to be interconnected, i.e.
>all mailing list server hosts can know about each other and exchange
>info on remote lists; someday I imagine there'll be a DNS-like namespace
>of mailing lists and server hosts out there somehow.
Actually, it already exists. You can reach any non-confidential LISTSERV
list by writing to listname@LISTSERV.NET, or the (human) manager by
writing to listname-request@LISTSERV.NET, the LISTSERV by writing to
listname-server@LISTSERV.NET, and so on. You can get more information
about that by ordering (via GET) the file NSC93US.PS from
LISTSERV@SEARN.SUNET.SE (the handout for a LISTSERV tutorial at the
NSC'93 conference).
>(they asked for LISTSERV but since this is on Unix, they would have to
>get listproc instead).
The first version of the (real) LISTSERV for unix was announced in May 94
and formally released on June 23. While some of the code hasn't been
ported yet, there are already 90,000 lines of code and about 75% of the
functionality of the original VM server. The remainder will be ported
over the next year or so. LISTSERV is also available for VMS and is being
ported to NT, Windows 4.0, and quite possibly OS/2. The code is very easy
to port to new environments - the first unix version was created from the
VM version in about a week, and polished in another week. Then we ran
into all sorts of weird situations with sendmail which took another 2
weeks to isolate and do something about, but that's another story :-)
>With Listproc, if you can get it configured and running smoothly, you
>can apparently join a growing inter-operating network of cooperating
>"peer" list hosts, and even inter-operate with Bitnet LISTSERV list
>hosts too.
That is not quite true. While both systems support peered lists, you
cannot peer a LISTSERV list with a ListProc list. You can make a number
of kludges which somehow cause messages to flow back and forth without a
loop, but you will not get load balancing, request forwarding, etc.
Technically, such setups are not peers, but "mirrors".
>An outfit called CREN, an offshoot of Educom, has taken over the
>development of both the Bitnet LISTSERV, and the Unix Listproc,
This is not correct. While CREN did purchase the rights to ListProc from
Tasos in March, they have absolutely no involvement with LISTSERV's
development. They simply purchased service on behalf of all their members
for the period 1 Dec 93 to 30 Jun 94 (in fact it is more complicated, and
I won't try to sum up 30 pages of legalese in 2 lines, but at any rate
this is a service/support purchase and CREN did not acquire anything
closely or remotely resembling software ownership). The purchase of
ListProc was kept secret from us during the negotiations and announced 6
days after the signature of the service contract. So, as you can see,
there is really no tie between CREN and LISTSERV other than this service
contract.
Eric
From list-managers-owner Sun Jul 24 18:18:29 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id SAA05872; Sun, 24 Jul 1994 18:18:29 GMT
Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940615)
id LAA05866; Sun, 24 Jul 1994 11:18:18 -0700
Message-Id: <199407241818.LAA05866@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>
Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by SEARN.SUNET.SE (IBM VM SMTP V2R2)
with BSMTP id 4206; Sun, 24 Jul 94 20:19:41 +0200
Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin ERIC@SEARN) by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with RFC822 id 0635; Sun, 24 Jul 1994 20:19:41 +0200
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 20:08:13 +0200
From: Eric Thomas
Subject: Re: Clarifications regarding LISTSERV
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: Message of Sun, 24 Jul 1994 19:58:48 +0200 from
List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
On Sun, 24 Jul 1994 19:58:48 +0200 Eric Thomas
said:
>ported to NT, Windows 4.0, and quite possibly OS/2. The code is very
>easy to port to new environments - the first unix version was created
>from the VM version in about a week, and polished in another week.
*sigh* I knew I was going to make a mistake! The unix version was created
from the *VMS* version, which was the first non-VM version, in 1-2 weeks.
The VMS version took months to create from the VM version, which itself
took years to be rewritten in a portable fashion (this work started in
1991). All versions use the same source code for system-independent
functions. I forgot the exact numbers, I think this is about 70,000 lines
of code. The first unix version was built by compiling this common code,
which knows nothing about operating systems, and then copying the VMS
interface code, deleting everything that was implemented with native VMS
calls rather than C library calls, filling in the gaps, and adding a
sendmail interface. I hope this clarifies what I was trying to say - I
was certainly not trying to claim that porting the original VM code to
unix was a week of work :-)
Eric
From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 27 17:55:25 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940726)
id RAA08911; Wed, 27 Jul 1994 17:55:25 GMT
Received: from caesun6.epg.harris.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940726)
id KAA08905; Wed, 27 Jul 1994 10:55:13 -0700
Received: from iowa.epg.harris.com by caesun6.epg.harris.com (4.1/SMI-4.1)
id AA14833; Wed, 27 Jul 94 13:58:46 EDT
Received: by iowa.epg.harris.com (4.1/SMI-4.0)
id AA00670; Wed, 27 Jul 94 14:04:13 EDT
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 94 14:04:13 EDT
From: dmp@epg.harris.com (Donald Patterson)
Message-Id: <9407271804.AA00670@iowa.epg.harris.com>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Help! in configuring majordomo
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
I am just configuring majordomo to manage a number of (15!) lists. I have
been testing things with a single list for a few weeks, with things going
pretty smoothly. Suddenly today, (after a restore?), I began getting
"mailer error 5" (returned message attached).
I found in the /src/README some discussion about this:
unknown mailer error 5 - This can be caused by a number of things all
relating to the wrappers inability to execute the perl script.
This can include:
the perl script is not executable
the location of the perl program specified with the #!
line is incorrect
the location where the wrapper looks for the perl
scripts is not the location where the scripts are
located.
Questions are:
1. where is the #! line that is referred to?
2. Unrelated: Why do my approval requests come from majordom and not
majordomo? (They also tell me to send approvals *to* majordom, which is
wrong.) My aliases file begins with:
#
listmgr: majordomo
majordomo: "|/net/caesun6/home/users/majordomo/wrapper majordomo"
majordomo-owner: dmp
owner-majordomo: dmp
majordom: dmp
I have a few other questions, but don't want to "wear out my welcome"!
Thanks in advance,
_____________________________________________________________________________
Don Patterson, Iowa'82 \\ INTERNET : dmp@epg.harris.com | _ _ |
Harris Corporation \\ UUCP : ...!uunet!x102a!dpatterson |_| |_| | |
Engr. Productivity Group \\ CCMAIL : DPatters | _|_ |_/\/\/\|_|
1025 W. Nasa Blvd, MS E300\\ VOICE : (407) 729-3907| | | |_| |_| |
Melbourne, FL 32919 \\ FAX : (407) 724-3399| WON BY ONE| |_________|
>From daemon Wed Jul 27 11:31:00 1994
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 94 11:30:59 EDT
From: Mailer-Daemon (Mail Delivery Subsystem)
Subject: Returned mail: unknown mailer error 5
To: dmp
----- Transcript of session follows -----
majordomo: No such file or directory
554 "|/net/caesun6/home/users/majordomo/wrapper majordomo"... unknown mailer error 5
----- Unsent message follows -----
Return-Path:
Received: by iowa.epg.harris.com (4.1/SMI-4.0)
id AA00531; Wed, 27 Jul 94 11:30:59 EDT
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 94 11:30:59 EDT
From: dmp (Donald Patterson)
Message-Id: <9407271530.AA00531@iowa.epg.harris.com>
To: majordomo
lists
end
----- End Included Message -----
From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 27 19:53:03 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940726)
id TAA10876; Wed, 27 Jul 1994 19:53:03 GMT
Received: from netcom.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940726)
id MAA10870; Wed, 27 Jul 1994 12:52:53 -0700
Received: by netcom.com (8.6.8.1/SMI-4.1/Netcom)
id MAA13957; Wed, 27 Jul 1994 12:56:48 -0700
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 1994 12:56:48 -0700
From: mcb@netcom.com (Michael C. Berch)
Message-Id: <199407271956.MAA13957@netcom11.netcom.com>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: Help! in configuring majordomo
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
dmp@epg.harris.com (Donald Patterson) writes:
> I am just configuring majordomo to manage a number of (15!) lists. I have
> been testing things with a single list for a few weeks, with things going
> pretty smoothly. Suddenly today, (after a restore?), I began getting
> "mailer error 5" (returned message attached). [etc. ...]
Just a gentle reminder that Majordomo-specific questions should
really be directed to the Majordomo-Users or Majordomo-Workers mailing
lists, where you can get pretty good responses to questions and
problems like this. List-Managers is more focused on general policy
issues, methods and procedures, etc., and not everybody runs Majordomo
(or LISTSERV or Listproc, or whatever).
For info on the Majordomo lists send a message to
Majordomo-Users-Request@GreatCircle.COM
Majordomo-Workers-Request@GreatCircle.COM
Thanks,
--
Michael C. Berch
List-Managers list manager
List stuff: list-managers-owner@greatcircle.com
In real life: mcb@postmodern.com / mcb@netcom.com / mcb@greatcircle.com
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 28 12:18:46 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940726)
id MAA27895; Thu, 28 Jul 1994 12:18:46 GMT
Received: from tso.uc.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940726)
id FAA27889; Thu, 28 Jul 1994 05:18:37 -0700
Received: (from johnb@localhost) by tso.uc.edu (8.6.9/8.6.9) id IAA09233 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Thu, 28 Jul 1994 08:13:18 -0400
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 08:13:18 -0400
From: "John Byczkowski"
Message-Id: <199407281213.IAA09233@tso.uc.edu>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Policies and problems of lists
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
My name is John Byczkowski, and I'm a reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer,
the morning daily here.
I'm writing an article about Internet mailing lists, and would be interested
in talking to a few list managers about trends and problems in this field.
Is the trend toward moderated or unmoderated lists? How do you effectively
deal with users who get out of line (posting off-topic, flaming, etc.)? Does
anyone out there fear being sued for actions taken while managing a list?
I personally feel that joining a mail list is the best way to meet people
online, and I want to give readers a sense of what to expect and a few rules
of etiquette (I'll learn to spell that before I write the article).
I'm on deadline, so quick responses would be much appreciated. E-mail me here
with your phone number and I'll call you, or call me at 513-768-8503.
Thanks in advance.....John B.
From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 28 13:24:24 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940726)
id NAA28871; Thu, 28 Jul 1994 13:24:24 GMT
Received: from ftp.std.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940726)
id GAA28865; Thu, 28 Jul 1994 06:24:16 -0700
Received: from world.std.com by ftp.std.com (8.6.8.1/Spike-8-1.0)
id JAA15711; Thu, 28 Jul 1994 09:28:04 -0400
Received: by world.std.com (5.65c/Spike-2.0)
id AA11462; Thu, 28 Jul 1994 09:28:01 -0400
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 09:28:01 -0400 (EDT)
From: bill f banks
Subject: Re: Policies and problems of lists
To: usr7156a@TSO.UC.EDU
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <199407281213.IAA09233@tso.uc.edu>
Message-Id:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Hi John,
I'm a list manager. Also I'm handicap, on the net their are no
handicaps. Maybe you want to talk to me about your story.
Bill Banks
508-829-2005
On Thu, 28 Jul 1994, John Byczkowski wrote:
>
> My name is John Byczkowski, and I'm a reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer,
> the morning daily here.
>
> I'm writing an article about Internet mailing lists, and would be interested
> in talking to a few list managers about trends and problems in this field.
>
> Is the trend toward moderated or unmoderated lists? How do you effectively
> deal with users who get out of line (posting off-topic, flaming, etc.)? Does
> anyone out there fear being sued for actions taken while managing a list?
>
> I personally feel that joining a mail list is the best way to meet people
> online, and I want to give readers a sense of what to expect and a few rules
> of etiquette (I'll learn to spell that before I write the article).
>
> I'm on deadline, so quick responses would be much appreciated. E-mail me here
> with your phone number and I'll call you, or call me at 513-768-8503.
>
> Thanks in advance.....John B.
>
>
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 29 14:33:51 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940726)
id OAA15302; Fri, 29 Jul 1994 14:33:51 GMT
Received: from UUCP-GW.CC.UH.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940726)
id HAA15288; Fri, 29 Jul 1994 07:33:10 -0700
Received: from Taronga.COM by UUCP-GW.CC.UH.EDU with UUCP id AA04708
(5.67a/IDA-1.5 for greatcircle.com!list-managers); Fri, 29 Jul 1994 09:32:42 -0500
Received: by taronga.taronga.com (smail2.5)
id AA18778; 29 Jul 94 09:22:29 CDT (Fri)
Subject: New Rider's Internet Yellow Pages
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 94 9:22:27 CDT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.2 PL16]
Message-Id: <9407290922.AA18778@taronga.taronga.com>
From: arielle@taronga.com (Stephanie da Silva)
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Just picked this book up and I was displeased with what I found.
Despite the fact they used the Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists and
didn't credit me for it, they also published the posting address for
every single mailing list they listed (which they referred to as
"listservs).
Needless to say, I wrote them a letter about it outlining my disappoval.
I think from now on, I'll refuse permission whenever anyone asks if they
can use the PAML. Too many people jumping on the Internet bandwagon
to make a buck and we're starting to get people not very familiar with
the topic they're writing about. Tho the flood of books may have peaked.
I was talking with someone at Que and he said that bookstores are starting
to say "No more Internet books" as their shelves are full, plus they
don't have enough expertise on the Internet to sell them to the public.
Makes sense.
--
Stephanie da Silva PO Box 720711
arielle@taronga.com Houston, TX 77272
Moderator, rec.food.recipes 713 568 0381
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 29 15:25:57 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940726)
id PAA15805; Fri, 29 Jul 1994 15:25:57 GMT
Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940726)
id IAA15797; Fri, 29 Jul 1994 08:25:42 -0700
Message-Id: <199407291525.IAA15797@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>
Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by SEARN.SUNET.SE (IBM VM SMTP V2R2)
with BSMTP id 3461; Fri, 29 Jul 94 17:26:30 +0200
Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin ERIC@SEARN) by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with RFC822 id 9147; Fri, 29 Jul 1994 17:26:29 +0200
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 17:23:39 +0200
From: Eric Thomas
Subject: Re: New Rider's Internet Yellow Pages
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 29 Jul 94 9:22:27 CDT from
List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
A friend of mine, who is a teacher, is getting free copies of all sorts
of Internet books (the publishers hope that she'll like them and tell
students to buy them). Most of them talk about mailing lists. More than
90% contain information that is technically incorrect. I'm not talking
about subtle details here, but about things that Joe Internet User with
his two mailing list subscriptions knows. The first time I saw that, I
got angry and wanted to write to the publisher. By the time I had gone
through the pile, I decided it wasn't worth it. It would be a full time
job :-(
Eric
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 29 21:30:12 1994
Return-Path:
Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940726)
id VAA19739; Fri, 29 Jul 1994 21:30:12 GMT
Received: from mailhost.phantom.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.6.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-940726)
id OAA19720; Fri, 29 Jul 1994 14:29:44 -0700
Received: from mindvox (mindvox.phantom.com) by mailhost.phantom.com (4.1/SMI-4.1)
id AA26220; Fri, 29 Jul 94 17:54:26 EDT
Received: by mindvox (4.1/SMI-4.1)
id AA21154; Fri, 29 Jul 94 17:32:27 EDT
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 17:32:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: Cabinet Cat
Subject: Re: Policies and problems of lists
To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
Cc: usr7156a@tso.uc.edu
In-Reply-To: <199407290810.BAA12303@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>
Message-Id:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
On Fri, 29 Jul 1994 List-Managers-Digest-Owner@GreatCircle.COM wrote:
> Is the trend toward moderated or unmoderated lists? How do you effectively
> deal with users who get out of line (posting off-topic, flaming, etc.)? Does
> anyone out there fear being sued for actions taken while managing a list?
I think there's a growing trend toward more lists that happen to be
moderated, but I don't think it's necessarily going to become The Way to
run a list. It's just becoming more necessary in some cases as the New
grows and the number of computer-novices grows.
I've toyed with the idea of making my lists moderated, but only because
there are SO many bounced emails and error messages that you have to do
it in order to filter out auto-generated garbage. Just today my biggest
list got spammed with over 200 copies of the same 5 emails, because a
subscriber's mailer went psycho. What can you do in such a case, other
than watch dozens of pissed-off subscribers scream?
People out of line? Well, I like to run my lists loosely...I'll only
throw people off for INTENTIONAL mail-bombing, or out-of-control mailer
problems. Though I have to admit, sometimes I think about it...it's
very, VERY easy for flame wars to start, even o lists devoted to the
most innocuous subjects.
> I personally feel that joining a mail list is the best way to meet people
> online, and I want to give readers a sense of what to expect and a few rules
> of etiquette (I'll learn to spell that before I write the article).
Rule number 1: The etiquette of a given list is whatever that list's
manager says it is.
Rule number 2: See Rule 1. :)
Seriously though, even the most obvious ones need to be spelled out, in
my experience: Don't send listserver commands to the list. Don't quote
entire DIGESTS back to the list. Don't be a jerk. for some reason,
these concepts are very hrd for some people to grasp.
___________________________________________________________
Aaron Dickey kieran@phantom.com
More insomniacs subscribe to World News Now than to any
other mailing list! wnn-request@world.std.com
From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 29 22:06:49 1994
Return-Path: